I think what attracts me to writing is that it necessitates context for its full impact. Especially when it comes to love and romantic stories, mostly everything can sound corny or questionable when extracted as a quote. Words need to work together to achieve anything, no matter how much we’re pushed towards writing the shortest, saddest story ever. So when I pluck “I am Venom. And you are mine” from the first Venom film the layers of meaning in the language are not only unassuming, but also chilling in their implications.
Is Venom a parasite or a symbiote? Depends on whose body is taking him in. And when Venom takes residence, he nests. Stretches out. Throws himself around the roomincredulous and grateful for a lack of visceral hostility, finally. A reject even among his own, he has found a place to rest. To the unaware eye he has taken a hostage. To the starving monsterfucker he has found a kindred soul.
“Mine” barely begins to cover it. “Mine” is a testing ground for whom has never had. “Mine” is a question that Eddie Brock is now conscripted to. All’s fair.
Venom not only occupies Eddie’s body, he’s its shield. Keeps him from being mincemeat. They’re both drafted into an arrangement that leads them to begrudgingly concede that they can’t hack it alone. Their worlds aren’t built for that, and neither are they. But they’re in a major metropolitan city on Earth which isn’t built for them becoming One.
To become One is to birth a terrified new world that scrapes skyscrapers while admiring the beauty of the void. “I got us.” Elevator or window? Death defying is a wonderful motivator for compromise. Paves the path to surrender. No matter how they reach the lobby, the big city wants them split, embattled. More rent money that way. Don’t talk to yourself on the street, you look like a danger. Compound the alienation. Smash the path. Pick a new old fight. If someone can leave, they eventually will. The love of a faceless crowd falls flat without him. This will inevitably end. It must end, or everything else around them will instead.
Nowadays, the world ends every other Tuesday. It can handle an alien parasite and his human host boyfriend having run of the mill relationship issues. The rebound is swift in its equal inevitability to rupture. Maybe everything else should end. It doesn’t anyway. They are Venom and you don’t need to worry unless you’re at the opposite end of their teeth, dripping with toxin (a term of endearment).
Laura Andrea is a writer from Carolina, Puerto Rico. They hold an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso. Her work can be found in Pussy Magic, The Rio Grande Review, Acentos Review, and Brave Voices Magazine, among others. She’s always looking for a good park to read, write, and divinate in. You can follow their day to day on Instagram & Twitter @lauranlora