Seventeen

𝖝𝖎𝖛. would you run away

Do you die before you break?

           Once upon a time, God said let there be light, so when she arrived with suns for eyes, stardust for bones and constellations for a heart, I let her in. No one will ever see her true form. She read me like a book, ran her fingers down my spine and looked in between the lines. Say my name, smear my ink across her pretty pink mouth. Nolite Timere, she said, tenderness licking the syllables and I can see her petal-soft shadow shading the back of my skull and she finds shelter in my mind. I wish to ask her if she hates what she sees, but I'm laying down on her bed, I'm looking up at her ceiling and I can feel myself rotting. The light behind the curtains get darker. My head hurts, I'm tired, I'm dancing and I feel weightless, I think I'm laughing and it makes me hurt more because all I've ever known was pain and not laughter.

         I wake up and I'm never sure of what I hold onto anymore. All I know is that my hands are covered in my own blood, this used to be evermore, now it's a song of eldritch. Hope is a heartache but I'm heartless. I walk with her but all I wish is to wake, walk and forget and forget and forget. If I could say goodbye, I wouldn't. If I let go of her hand, I realise it's now her who's bleeding. I want to bid Hermione with condolences, but I'm afraid she won't care.

          There are eight phases to love.

           I. Attraction: I wished to live in her shadows, but I'd be in a neverland of fear if I were to be seen through if ever I were put to the light. I would never reveal anything about myself, I don't think. Fireflies ached in the pit of my belly, I wish to tell her it's her doing (or undoing) but I'm too afraid she won't care. At this point, I think she never will. Or maybe I'm too mean to myself— but I know I'm far from anything she should ever want or deserve. She's a petal-coated girl, wrapped in her intellect with pink lemonade for lips. I would never want to ruin her. I wish her to be happy. Even if it's not with me. I see the blur, the haze, but I can still see her behind it— she's crying— why would she be crying? I'm not worth crying over.

           II. Infatuation: she ties me to her and loops all my rotting edges with her saviour stitch. Earth angel only has sweet crust laying around her like an aura. I can't believe she likes me better than the rest. I've never been anyone's favourite, I know she's never told me I was but I like to think that I could be. She's seen sides of me I've never shown. There's a static string writing her prose on my veins, I tell her you're my favourite, I get a smile in return. She doesn't care, does she? Time is slowly running out for me, for us, but I like it.

           III. Love: love, love love— if anyone chose to cut me up, they'll find an eternal winter freezing my flesh with a slow pace and isn't that what love is about? A purgatory, an evergreen pause, a frozen time? Isn't this what love brings you to? It comes hand-in-hand with breaking, it's your choice to take its hands. I love the way death feels on my throat.

            IV. Trust: trust is something that splits you open and takes your heart in its hands and squeezes until your head pounds and your mouth bleeds. I lay in her arms, croaking. I'm going to die in my best friend's arms. I can feel time turning and lingering its warnings on every side of me.

           V: Worship: as I lay still, withering in her arms, I praise her— for everything, really— for being here while I let myself perish. I wander around this cathedral of grief, I get down on my knees to worship my lover.

           VI: Madness: I can feel myself twisting and turning. I'm waiting for my body to feel like my body. I never understood what it meant to hurt as much wanting her— a forbidden girl strolling in the corners of my heartless heart.

           VII: Death: funny how I'm here now. I'm minutes away from death slipping into my body and letting my soul wander off in its exchange. The pills are rotating in the pit of my belly, I can see her even in my demise's hour. I'm homesick, but I'm never really sure where home is or was. Do I even have a home besides her? Our souls have been knitted, like a moon flower blooming in its rarity. There's too many words to describe death, in rawness— I'm dying, I don't know how many more truths I can tell or words I can put into my tripping sentences. This is a rehearsal for her heart ache, I'm not sure she even cares, but she caresses me in her hold and I have never seen a love truer than ours.

           VIII: Heartbreak: I'm gone. Desolation, despair, goodbye. The rival's sword has punctured my already wounded heart, I can feel the breaking while it spills blood— my heart is in my throat— I wish to dance around my ashes one day. Maybe one day, I'll be alright, even during death I am thinking of anything other than myself. I grabbed this fate with both my hands and let the life has kissed its way out of me. I let death and heartbreak stain the edges of my soul. I'm falling into pieces, one by one. She cries, wails, I do not know what I have to do, so I let her. I wish my lifeless body could hold her back, she presses kisses to my head and holds my hand to her face— I loved her— I'm never sure if she loved me, but even if she did it wouldn't have amounted to the way I did her. But any love was enough. Any love, even the smallest of kinds.

Do you die before you break?

I'd like to think dying is the breaking point. If it is, then I am truly broken.

I'm finally going to sleep. I'm praying to a God that I don't believe in, but I hope— if he does exist— that he will welcome me.

            Goodbye.

            (you'll all forget me anyhow.)