Poetry by Dmitry Pronin aka Lieyleen Lilith Aguino

Mother
By Dmitry Pronin aka Lieyleen Lilith Aguino

Last time I seen Blair, it was at Roxbury. Red-brick buildings, emerald grass, and sky of that only color – bottomless, pitch-high – as can be in early fall. She called me her daughter, called me right away, as soon as she saw me. Through the life, parts of our lives we lost, and parts we gained.

When Reese stabbed her, at MCI-J, she cried, “Lily, help!” She cried that she loved him. She taught me to cherish my scars, yet never valued her own. “Outlast the wolves” was our motto and motive to live while inside. It started much, much earlier: for me, in Colorado under the snowy peaks of Florence; for her, in a small apartment crammed with hungry mouths of her siblings. We came to it, different ways, and shared it as our own secret.

I tried to warn her about Reese, and, the night before that memorable breakfast, I warned him about Blair. He had the dreamy, kind eyes of a killer, he did. She tried it on his time, and he tried it on hers. “Young,” she would say to him, her eyes glistening, “Young, you geeking! I said what I said, and what I said I meant; you geeking! Ain’t nobody in the world I cheated on you with!” He believed her, and he didn’t.

We didn’t follow each other’s paths, nor moves, yet walked along keeping each other within sight. We both were in a tight spot, and both got a kick out of it. Life is transition, and transition is life, and you always become somebody new. Taking a path – of growth, of least resistance? The answer is yours.

“Endure what you can’t avoid, avoid what you can, and learn from both” – that’s how we lived “in jails”. We didn’t make easy choices my birth parents did, or conventional ones, but always represented – the cutting edge, the frontline of the community. They judged her by me, and me by her. We both had our traumas: she – the stabbing, and I, just like Monroe, was raped. Not always we did what was good in the public’s mind, but always – what was efficient.

Blair was the master of the spoken word; I knew how to put words together on paper. At different times, prison authorities accused us both of “weaponizing PREA”, but it only struck a stronger chord between us, and made our friendship grow stronger.

We both hated the prison world, lock-downs, and blood on the floor. Yet, unwittingly, we became part of it, got woven into its hideous, horrific fabric. Both of us had a longing for human contact, for something outside of us, and for the outside world. We didn’t need to clean up our bodies – neither of us ever used drugs – but we both needed to organize the inner closets of our souls. We were not beyond redemption; yet, sometimes, it seemed to elude us. We often had to lie to prison guards, administration even, and our outlet for truth was our cell.

We forged an unlikely connection: her, an African-American girl from DC, me, a white one, from Russia – and learned from each other. She called me “Big Purr”; she called me her daughter. My transgender mother who, just like my birth one, I never really knew.

Noir
By Dmitry Pronin aka Lieyleen Lilith Aguino

When little Bobby Padilla punched Shawn Travers in the mouth in the gay bar “The Eagle” downtown, everybody thought for a moment that he was done for.

Then the unthinkable happened: Travers turned around…and left the bar. The crowd hushed – they could’ve never imagined.

That night Bobby’s girlfriend, Maya, “a transgender mix of a bloodhound and a bulldog”, as she jokingly defined herself, was unusually serious and quiet while watching TV with him. Bobby stole several glances at her, but she didn’t break the silence. Until…

A home invasion was taking place on the screen. There was a flush of limbs and bullets when Maya looked at bobby and said, in a quiet, thoughtful way:

“Babe, I have a job for you…”

“What kind of job?” Bobby responded with a lazy grin.

“There’s that guy” – Maya continued – “he lives absolutely alone in a huge house in Lexington, in Virginia. I know him well. He also has a lot of money…”

Bobby arched his eyebrows.

“So much money” – Maya pressed on “that he doesn’t know what to do with it. He recently bought lots of gold. It’s in the house, babe.”

Now Bobby looked interested.

“I need a buddy for this one” – he only said.

• * *

“Keep your friends close, and enemies – closer.” Bobby remembered it well. He smoked a cigarette of tobacco mixed with kesha, waiting for big Travers in the shadow of the tree in the guy’s front yard. Finally, the car pulled over and Travers himself stepped out. He was alone.

Bobby whistled, then stepped into the light. Shawn stopped on his tracks, face unreadable. Was it anger? Fear? Shame? “Perhaps, all of this” – Bobby thought, but aloud he said nonchalantly, “Hi, Shawn!”

“Want a rematch?” – Shawn growled, his face plain mean now.

“Don’t think so. I have a business to you, big guy.”

That night they were sitting in “The Eagle” again, talking like old friends, when Maya joined them.

“I’m going in with you two tomorrow.”

“No way” – said both Bobby and Shawn, simultaneously.

“There’s a way” – disagreed Maya, sitting down on Bobby’s lap. He thawed instantly, content and happy with his life as a cat. Shawn eyed them suspiciously, but didn’t say anything anymore.

There was thick mist in the Metro area next evening, and the road to Lexington took a half hour longer. The huge house was on the outskirts of the city, squeezed between a forest and a golf course. The golf course would be deserted even at daytime now: winter.

They left the car half a mile from the house, and made their way on foot. It was a three-story colonial, white stucco, grey-tiled roof. In a single window on the first floor there was light. “He’s in the kitchen,” Maya whispered.

They circled the house, quiet, stealth, ascended on the back patio, and reached the back door. Bobby picked up the lock. Inside, the two guys followed Maya. She knew the house well. “How many times she was here, and why?” – thought Bobby walking through the thick darkness to the kitchen. Travers trailed them.

They cautiously approached the light coming from under the kitchen door, guns drawn. Travers was readying himself to kick the door in, but Bobby motioned him not to: the door was not locked!

Then strange things started happening fast, and Bobby didn’t have time to think it over. First, the door opened abruptly, but nobody was directly behind it. Light cut into the eyes accustomed to darkness. Travers cursed.

Inside they could see a motionless figure in a dark robe with a hoodie turn its back to them. “Don’t move!” – yelled Bobby pointing the gun at it. He suddenly was aware that Maya was not at his side anymore.

The figure moved, ever so slightly, then turned around. Bobby was about to shoot when something stopped him: a woman! The figure in a dark robe was a woman. At this point he heard a metallic click, and felt the cold hard barrel of Travers’ handgun touch the back of his head. “You set me up, bastards!” the big fella yelled.

The female in the dark robe, beautiful as she was, moved again, raised her left arm. What happened next scared Bobby so much that for an instant he forgot all about the handgun at the back of his head. A ball of plasma, a shining ball of strange energy, parted with the woman’s hand, flew straight to Bobby, but at the last possible second, hit Travers square in the jaw, and he collapsed.

Bobby, unharmed, now could see black candles and strange books on the table. He didn’t even pay attention that Maya disappeared, until the beautiful witch spoke, in his girlfriend’s sweet voice:

“Hello, Bobby.”

Bobby started shivering uncontrollably as if he was slapped. His last conscious thought was that he was about to lose it, for he only heard Maya’s melodic and mean laughter. He didn’t remember how he found himself outside the house.

• * *

The next night Bobby was at “The Eagle” again, drinking hard, as if trying to bury his stumbling, chaotic thoughts in alcohol. After hours, he waddled to the parking lot outside.

• * *

Maya, looking quite regular (“regular witch?”) – thought Bobby and smiled, sat on the hood of his car.

Bobby covered the distance slowly, cautiously, and Maya started laughing, looking at the expression on his face. That melodic laughter again!

“So, you a witch?” Bobby asked, and Maya nodded. Then kissed him. Then kissed him again.

• * *

Next morning on the news Bobby saw the report of a man, dead for reasons unknow, in an abandoned (“abandoned??”) house in a northern Virginia neighborhood. Picture of Travers was shown.

Bobby got out of the house and started driving aimlessly. Only after he started the engine did he notice two antique, leather-bound books on the front passenger seat: “Goetia” and “Lesser Keys of Solomon”.

Story #3: Florence
By Dmitry Pronin aka Leyleen Lilith Aguino

“It sucks here” says Crow once, us two walking the track on the yard, under crystalline skies of Colorado. “Cold, too.” The skies are clear. We’re walking the track, cold at heart.

High-plain desert envelopes us. Mountains are silent. No living creature is around us. Are we ourselves alive?

I’m still in prison, to this day, and Crow has just come back to it. I’m nobody to criticize, nor do I need to. From the deserts of our souls to build up castles of new lives. Have I failed in it? Has Crow?

Pikes Peak with snow all over, and the ridges of Rocky Mountains surround the compound. Snow is crispy, crystalline, just like the skies above. Our souls and hearts are empty. What we’ll fill them with? Filth of our previous lives, or mountain air, snow, and clear skies?

“It sucks,” repeats Crow, urgency in his high-pitched voice. Does it? Is it? Is it really outside of us, or inside? We’re not born with hearts of a lion, nor do we think murder all day. The first is learnt, the second is unnecessary annex to our inner worlds.

To the inner worlds richer than Tolkien would ever create. Just discover them, just discover. Cold heart, cold soul, all seems deserted inside. To build it all up anew.