The muse dies in the end

We've all killed a few of them, actually.

It’s so romantic to fall in love with a writer, or so I’ve heard. People are enamoured with the idea and I know it to be true, I see it on TikTok all the time. Over the years, I’ve seen sensible, measured women get tricked by paragraphs and speeches destined for romantic comedies. I’ve seen careless men suddenly obsess over the reputation they leave behind when they eventually fuck it up with a writer. They hate to see that when they set something free, that something free has a voice.

It’s never been deliberate, because my pen is just a natural extension of my brain but I’ve lured many a muse with a lyrical observation or quick remark. I’ve found muses in the most ordinary of people.

They come willingly because knowing a writer is the surest way to cheat death. I should know, I’ve immortalised so many people with pages and pens. For better or worse, I’ve given them nine lives. They always seemed to forget that I was the one who was keeping count.

I’ve always thought that it’s poetic justice when the instrument used to bring them to life is also used to end it. Of course, for legal reasons, we never really kill anyone - only the versions in our head and a part of ourselves too. Isn’t that the only version that matters to a muse anyway? Perhaps it’s the idea of greatness that keeps them around. I’ll tell you something, I’ll be damned if my muses ever take credit for how I alone turned my worst nightmares into far away daydreams.

I’ve never been a mystery, which to this day really gets on my nerves. I am an open book and I always think I’d be far more interesting if I wasn’t. Still, something about letting words fall quickly from my mouth seems to pique interest from other people. Maybe it’s because I have nothing to hide.

I know that I am annoying to some people, a chatterbox of sorts with a loud laugh and nervous habits. I have no poker face, just fingers that twirl through my hair when I’m nervous and a scattered pink rash on my neck when my blood pressure starts to rise. Why can’t I just shut up and be mysterious for once?

Because I am destined to be the one writing, not the one being written about.

At first, people are flattered to be a muse. They feel special because we protect their name and we choose the mask they get to wear in our story. Sometimes they even come out of it looking good, I guess. Sometimes I conjure princes from pages. In the worst case scenarios, it makes them feel better about the way they’ve treated us because there’s already an element of fiction attached to it. If we don’t call them by their name, then we only made them up in our head. We’re protecting ourselves more than we’re protecting them, because deep down there is a fear that our words will eventually come back to bite us. We’re left with no choice, we have to put our muses into witness protection for our own good.

I’ve written about friends, enemies and lovers. I’ve carved men out of boys and twin flames out of friends. As with any laborious work, I usually chip away at myself in the process. I might find a bruise here and a paper cut there, but I don’t usually notice until the end.

None were ever that bothered about it, even if I stripped them of their colour and made them seem small. Most people like to be talked about, it makes them feel important and in a moment, they can live forever.

Foolishly or not, I’ve built them castles of egos and paragraphs. I’ve made villains into heroes, and fine-tuned friends into memories. Even if I stole their own version of events and replaced it with my own, they never really argued with me about it. They say there’s three versions of every story, and most of them would still probably say I had every right to have mine.

Only one person was ever truly angry with me. It came as a shock to him because after months of gaslighting and abuse, I finally retaliated. I took the story away from him when I took back my name. I’d spent months choking on silence, and I had so much to say. It was the first time he was a muse, and his last when he became the villain in my story. He suffered a fate worse than death, if you ask me.

If you rip apart an open book and bend it down the spine, you can’t be surprised when you see your fingerprints in the pages. To be a muse, you must accept that eventually you’ll be replaced. Such is the natural order of things when people come and go.

I’ve been afraid of being called ‘angry’. Angry women are so dangerous, and always so goddamn unlikeable. At least that’s how they make us feel. They’ll find comfort in our perfectly normal reaction to whatever scorned us. You dodged a bullet, kid.

I used to be afraid people (men, specifically) would be threatened by me, so I’d make myself quieter and smaller when I could. My way with words was a blessing and a curse. I could win an argument with words, but I could never lie with them. This meant that sometimes I’d be blind about the people who could. Everyone has a blind spot.

I’ve never loved a writer so I won’t cheat death quite like the others. It’s quite funny to me, because I am so riddled with anxiety over death.

When I die, there will be no sprawling soliloquies bleeding with endearment. There will be no saccharine accounts of my youth or library of mistakes. I am sometimes concerned with how I am perceived, so maybe this is life’s parting gift to me.

When death comes for me, it’ll grip me by the throat and drag me to wherever it is I’m destined to end up. Let’s just say, if I have minutes left, I’ll use them to make a scene. There’ll be dirt under my nails and lipstick smudged across my lips. I’ll go kicking and screaming, because I am afraid and my voice is the only legacy I’ll leave behind. When it’s time to go, I’ll wish someone made a note of it. Maybe they kept it safe, or maybe it’s lost forever. I wonder what it’s like to be alive in a writer’s mind, and I wonder if you feel it when they kill you. I’m sure they make it quick, I know I have.

Once again I’m reminded by all the women who have come before me, all the women who have been doomed to a history defined by the word of men. I’ll play a very small part in tipping the scales.

When my muse’s time is up, it is over quickly. It happens in the dark when my brain hums over the quiet. I sneak across floorboards, I turn on a lamp and I memorialise them. I pay tribute in petty insults and nostalgia.

I use a pen to count ribs and breaths, and I wait for the time to strike. It’s done by the time the ink dries and street lights fade. When I look around, all that’s left of them is dried flowers and dust. The life is gone.

Despite their reputation, muses were never built for immortality. For every muse that betrays them, there is a writer who might be duplicitous in return. In our own story, our last word is their last breath.

For some of them, it’s been a peaceful death of silence. They’ve simply slipped away. One day, I stopped writing about them. Running out of words and patience, I stopped painting pictures and framing movie moments for whatever reason. With others, they left me with no choice. I’d leave flowers on their grave, if only I could remember what their favourite colour is.

The real version of them is long gone, replaced with hauntings that come to visit me every so often.

They belonged to an older version of me, one that doesn’t exist anymore. We no longer know each other, forgetting phone numbers and middle names. They eventually become fiction to me, more of an idea of a person than anything else. I guess that’s all a muse ever is to begin with. Even the most memorable of them are just beautiful ideas collected by a person so desperate to give themselves a reason to write, a reason to feel.

For the muse, it might be a fate worse than death.