Birthright Post by Rhiannon- "The Monster Is Dead"
I read a book when I was younger,
Buffalo Soldiers,
About servicemen making war in times of peace,
When there was no real war to fight.

I was fixated reading it because I understood that it was true.
I was a proto-slayer, a Girl amongst girls, set apart
By my grasp on an idea about the consuming urge to fight.
It’s in us from day one,
Little soldiers yet to be drafted.

See, there always has to be an Enemy.
Mom, Dad, Sister, Brother, Vampire, Watcher, Police,
Who cares?
Without one, we get restless.
We’re designed for one thing and one thing only.
Battle.
So we turn on our friends, ourselves, anyone,
Just to wage a war and win it.

And then afterwards,
Licking our wounds but proud, defiant,
TRIUMPHANT,
We turn an ear to the newfound silence and we say to it,
“Now what?
Show me the next, bigger thing.”

You know we have to be bound for somewhere.
Upward or downward, it doesn’t matter.

Warriors always search for a worthy struggle.
Count back through your history books and I dare you to find
The champion who sat at ease in the knowledge of his safety.

Slayers are the most dysfunctional champions of all.
We fuck up so we’ll have things to recover from.
Trouble Addicts.

So today the Defiler is toast
And forget about all the hordes of vampires out there,
I’ll stake the ones I find, but they’re not enough to satisfy me anymore.
(Apparently you can build up a tolerance.)

It’s an attack of the clean life.
I quit corruption, I quit addictive men,
I quit smoking, I drank the last bottle on my shelf,
I even quit hating (did you see who I fought beside today?)
You know what else? Somehow, my rent’s paid in full.

Let’s face it.
My real monsters are dead.
I killed them.
And when I turn my ear to the newfound silence, do you know what I ask it?

I’m so goddamn predictable.

“Now what?
Show me the next, bigger thing.”