[mature] things we never thought we could be, adna

[bethlehem]

sometimes i wonder, will god ever forgive us for what we've done to each other? B E T H L E H E M then i look around and realize, god left this place a long time ago How long has it been since he last heard the shape his name took in someone else’s mouth? There is nothing special about it, the name. Nothing in it that makes it worth repeating. He wants to be moved by it. He wants to be swayed to some extreme. He wants it to mean something. He wants to imagine the way her tongue moves around it, how each syllable clambers up the long column of her throat. But he uses it so scarcely – and it is so scarcely used in turn – that he feels no particular attachment to it. It lights no fire at the center of him. It puts no thrill in his pulse. He merely blinks and nods, a half a thing. Maybe he didn’t look hard enough, she says, and perhaps she’s right. But he’d been a child when he’d started walking. He’d been afraid once, terrified even. He’d been lost and alone and choking on his grief. There had been a heart there in the cavern of his chest and it had been so desperate for love that he could barely breathe around it. And then it was gone and it was as if it had never been there at all. He drags in a shuddering breath then, his heavy eyelids fluttering. “Stay,” he mutters. He lifts his head then, angles his body toward her. “Please stay,” he says, louder now.