10-21-2019, 02:45 PM
<center><table bgcolor=929292 style="border-color:#929292; border-width: 0px; border-style: solid; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 10px"" cellspacing=10 cellpadding=10 width=600><tr><td><center><p align=left>
<font face=times size=4 color=black><i>( i swore the days were over of courting empty dreams</i></font>
<font color=929292>-----------------------------------------------</font><font face=times size=4 color=black><i>i worshipped at the altar of losing everything )</i></font></p>
<p align=justify><font color=2f2f2f face=times size=2>
He has fit her in the hollow space beside his useless heart.
He carries her there in the cavern of his chest.
It hitches his breath when her memory rails against its ribbed cage, sinks its teeth into the meat of his heart. Sometimes it takes him to his knees. More often than not, he wishes he could stay there.
He can still taste her blood when he rakes his tongue across his teeth. Her blood, which has always been his blood. Her blood, which, when swallowed (quite by accident), added a peculiar kind of effervescence to his veins.
More important than that, he can still remember the way she’d turned to him and smiled. It is this he chooses to hold on to. Because he is a coward. Because he cannot bear to think about how the unfettered joy in her expression collapsed around the sharp edges of her terror. He chooses to remember her happy and thinks that maybe someday he’ll be happy again, too.
But for now, he can barely breathe around it. He can feel it devouring him, carving out the marrow of his bones. He has found no solace and he supposes that he is grateful for this. Because he does not deserve it. It is his fault she is gone. He had unwittingly brought the darkness to her and had not fought hard enough to save her. He can feel the rage digging roots around his ribcage. He can feel it licking greedy at the base of his throat. It is a memory, of course, and little more than that. He is not an angry man and he never has been but the injustice of it and the enormity of his failure had combined and combusted in his gut, ripped a primal scream out of his throat, and the tiger that had taken his sister’s life splintered and then shattered.
He has not thought about the magic of it. He has felt absolutely no urge to explore it, preoccupied as he’s been with the grief. The enormous weight of it, the unbearable gravity of it. He has wondered, has spent a great deal of time wondering, if the bones will give out beneath it. He will carry it for the rest of his life, he knows this. He will not afford himself the mercy of collapsing under it, shaking it off. She will live in his chest and he will remember.
He feels the stirring in his heart. His useless heart. It tightens a vise around his throat, turns his useless breath thin. It douses him in a cold flame as he looks up from his meal – tasteless, worthless – of meadow grass and instinctively glances in the direction of the beach. She is never far from his mind, Keiran, but she takes up stubborn residence at the forefront now. As if it is she who is calling to him. It troubles him deeply, unsettles whatever semblance of shaky peace he’d found for himself in the meadow. But he goes. He goes because he cannot let her down again.
He takes with him what he has carried with him since he left the desert, tucked up beneath the tangles of his mane. Strands of both their mother and father’s tails and a few of her own, braided together presumably by birds. He’d found it in the sand beside her body, carried it between his teeth until he found someone to tuck it away where it would be safe.
It arrests his heart, to set foot on the beach, to feel his weight sink into the sand. He grits his teeth and chooses not to acknowledge the bodies scattered around him. Keiran is not here and he is, quite frankly, afraid of who else he might find here. Instead, he focuses on the ghostly figure up ahead.
He does not question how he knows that this is who he’s looking for. There had been a moment when his stomach had lurched and he’d thought that it might be Keiran. But the closer he gets, the more evident it is that it is not.
He stops just short of the ghost, exhales a shaky sigh. “<b>Is it you I’m looking for?</b>” he asks, quiet. <p align=right>
<font face=times size=4 color=black><i>( but you had a halo made of diamonds resting on your head</i></font><font color=929292>----------------------------</font>
<font face=times size=4 color=black><i>i should be dealing with my demons but i'm dodging them instead )</i></font>
</center></tr></td></table><img src=https://66.media.tumblr.com/bf3389c60f0751bac0afcff05bee7280/e916798fa53fb2c5-00/s640x960/7036f9882581995c755e6d898bff90f7e6288390.png></center>
<font face=times size=4 color=black><i>( i swore the days were over of courting empty dreams</i></font>
<font color=929292>-----------------------------------------------</font><font face=times size=4 color=black><i>i worshipped at the altar of losing everything )</i></font></p>
<p align=justify><font color=2f2f2f face=times size=2>
He has fit her in the hollow space beside his useless heart.
He carries her there in the cavern of his chest.
It hitches his breath when her memory rails against its ribbed cage, sinks its teeth into the meat of his heart. Sometimes it takes him to his knees. More often than not, he wishes he could stay there.
He can still taste her blood when he rakes his tongue across his teeth. Her blood, which has always been his blood. Her blood, which, when swallowed (quite by accident), added a peculiar kind of effervescence to his veins.
More important than that, he can still remember the way she’d turned to him and smiled. It is this he chooses to hold on to. Because he is a coward. Because he cannot bear to think about how the unfettered joy in her expression collapsed around the sharp edges of her terror. He chooses to remember her happy and thinks that maybe someday he’ll be happy again, too.
But for now, he can barely breathe around it. He can feel it devouring him, carving out the marrow of his bones. He has found no solace and he supposes that he is grateful for this. Because he does not deserve it. It is his fault she is gone. He had unwittingly brought the darkness to her and had not fought hard enough to save her. He can feel the rage digging roots around his ribcage. He can feel it licking greedy at the base of his throat. It is a memory, of course, and little more than that. He is not an angry man and he never has been but the injustice of it and the enormity of his failure had combined and combusted in his gut, ripped a primal scream out of his throat, and the tiger that had taken his sister’s life splintered and then shattered.
He has not thought about the magic of it. He has felt absolutely no urge to explore it, preoccupied as he’s been with the grief. The enormous weight of it, the unbearable gravity of it. He has wondered, has spent a great deal of time wondering, if the bones will give out beneath it. He will carry it for the rest of his life, he knows this. He will not afford himself the mercy of collapsing under it, shaking it off. She will live in his chest and he will remember.
He feels the stirring in his heart. His useless heart. It tightens a vise around his throat, turns his useless breath thin. It douses him in a cold flame as he looks up from his meal – tasteless, worthless – of meadow grass and instinctively glances in the direction of the beach. She is never far from his mind, Keiran, but she takes up stubborn residence at the forefront now. As if it is she who is calling to him. It troubles him deeply, unsettles whatever semblance of shaky peace he’d found for himself in the meadow. But he goes. He goes because he cannot let her down again.
He takes with him what he has carried with him since he left the desert, tucked up beneath the tangles of his mane. Strands of both their mother and father’s tails and a few of her own, braided together presumably by birds. He’d found it in the sand beside her body, carried it between his teeth until he found someone to tuck it away where it would be safe.
It arrests his heart, to set foot on the beach, to feel his weight sink into the sand. He grits his teeth and chooses not to acknowledge the bodies scattered around him. Keiran is not here and he is, quite frankly, afraid of who else he might find here. Instead, he focuses on the ghostly figure up ahead.
He does not question how he knows that this is who he’s looking for. There had been a moment when his stomach had lurched and he’d thought that it might be Keiran. But the closer he gets, the more evident it is that it is not.
He stops just short of the ghost, exhales a shaky sigh. “<b>Is it you I’m looking for?</b>” he asks, quiet. <p align=right>
<font face=times size=4 color=black><i>( but you had a halo made of diamonds resting on your head</i></font><font color=929292>----------------------------</font>
<font face=times size=4 color=black><i>i should be dealing with my demons but i'm dodging them instead )</i></font>
</center></tr></td></table><img src=https://66.media.tumblr.com/bf3389c60f0751bac0afcff05bee7280/e916798fa53fb2c5-00/s640x960/7036f9882581995c755e6d898bff90f7e6288390.png></center>