the two tongues (pen oneshots)

WHEN YOUR SICK DAYS ARE OVER , YOU CAN TURN THEM INTO SOME RAD SONG

you pieces of shit comment something nice

why does it hurt?

the question, he'd seen it everywhere. asked to describe it in poems for his teachers, seen it in the eyes of his therapists as they jotted down notes. found it in the hands of a little kid talking to their mothers about what happened to daddy and why he isn't home.

but what an unanswerable inquiry, something so complicated and complex, asking for an explanation of an indescribable emotion. patty could not fathom how to delineate the physical pain that comes along with the inevitable sadness he experiences at these late hours alone in his bed with his boyfriend out late again.

he was trapped under the comforters of his queen sized bed, strangled by the sheets and the blankets he wrapped himself in so he wouldn't feel as alone as he was. he wanted to escape his reality in the void of his duvet.

why does it hurt?

the question repeated in his mind, echoed across the walls of his skull. he wanted an answer. a solution to his problem that was gnawing at his nerves, ripping at his veins, scratching at his flesh.

it hurt, and there was no reason. that's what he had to learn. that the agony and discomfort that tore at him, ripped at his flesh and snarled its teeth in front of him, mocking him and laughing in his face. it was all a schedule routine, a built in emotion and feeling and sickness that he could not rid. but it was normal, none the less. a common pattern.

no matter how many people told him that this was okay, healthy even, to let out your pain in the form of screaming and crying, he was still ashamed. embarrassed by his actions, and the way he felt at night when he was fucking alone.

he needed something, someone, to remove the pennies that were dissolving in his mouth, liquid copper washing over his tongue. it tasted bitter, like he hadn't brushed his teeth in months, and it was racing down his throat.

the metal in his mouth was torturous, pushing against his gums and his cheeks, morphing itself into some personalized anxiety. one that knew him and his limits, knew how to fuck with him and destroy him. and it was clawing at his teeth and nerves and veins. begging to escape his mouth, but his lips are clasped shut so nothing can be released, no sound. it was attempting to force itself out of him so it could cover up his body and suffocate him, a long lasting squeezing, breath-taking hug.

it wanted to rip at his eyelids and sink into his pupils, gouge out the colour of his irises just to replace it with its own muddy hues. sting at his sclera with its needles, the sharp points digging deep inside his retina.

and then his breathing shallowed, steadying to a soft rhythm, one patty learned to memorize as he laid on his back with the sounds of his breath the only thing audible. it started to cloud up his foggy brain, filling up his head and pouring over the brim. pushing itself out of the sockets of his eye, and that's where it started. the tears, slow and cautious, little droplets of salt streaming down his pale skin, soaking into the crevices of his broken frame.

and when the water started to leave little blotches on his hoodie he realized that the hoodie belonged to ben and then he remembered he had to call ben because he promised to do so whenever he felt this way.

so he picked up his phone from under his pillow and sighed, looking at himself in the black screen for only a second, seeing if his face was normal enough to facetime. unsurprisingly, it wasn't, and the red stains were still visible across his white face.

he expected his call to go straight to voicemail, since ben's phone was usually turned off when he was at work, especially if it was an all-night shift. he said he'd be too tempted to check his notifications, and then he'd get carried away and just play on his phone all night when he should really be checking if there are any rats in the basement, that's my job right now, patty, i check for rats, okay? so don't think you have it too bad at your little fast food restaurant because i stepped on a dead mouse last week, alright?