Once, she loved rivers.
Once, she followed a girl into one, and the water splashed over her, baptismal, and maybe it was there that she fell in love with her. Maybe it was there the stars aligned, the pieces were set into motion, the great and terrible love story that matters to no one except her, because she’s who lived it. Survived it.
She could write books about what happened after the river, the years that followed of loving and leaving and wildflowers and lighting and blood and lighthouses and shipwrecks, all the fucking metaphors of their love that ended up not mattering in the end, because for all the metaphors she has not a single damn one saved her.
But she doesn’t want to write books, so we’ll shorten it: Once, she loved.
Now the sight of rivers makes bile rise in her throat, because it was by a river where she found the bones, where a heart was taken in. The river symbolizes grief, symbolizes falling to her knees, though all the wailing and gnashing of teeth had done exactly as much good as you’d expect.
(That is to say: none.)
This is not the same river, of course, this is different – everything’s different – but the sight of it sets her teeth on edge. Across her silver skin, lightning crackles, a living storm. She should turn away, go back, but she’s so sick of the sameness that she walks on, the sound of the river crashing over rocks in her ears. To most it’s a calming sound, peaceful, but to her, it sounds like derisive laughter.
(Once, slick and wet and laughing, she loved rivers. She loved the girl in the river. She loved.)
I’ll touch you all and make damn sure
Cordis
that no one touches me