08-22-2015, 09:33 PM
you taught me the courage of stars before you left
When that first moment happens, that first instance where your heart soars in your chest and you feel more dangerously alive than you ever have before, you don’t remember to take a second to consider how far it is you have to fall from that point, how broken you will be when your heart crashes against dirt and stone. That is the flaw of loving. Of loving freely and with all of yourself. Falling out of love, out of a life that feels like electricity, like lightning under your skin, is wholly obliterating. The pieces of who you were and who you are get scattered so far, so savagely, that it becomes impossible to be that self any more. We call it growth, justify it by saying it’s a lesson learned, but this growth is only made so by the death of who you were. This growth is a sudden ending, a lost beginning. It is the putting back together of pieces that don’t fit, forcing them together until they do, and pretending like that could ever be enough.
But it has to be, because that’s growth, it’s how we learn from our mistakes.
We learn how to recognize them the next time we make the very same ones.
But we don’t learn to not make them again.
The solitude, this loneliness she both resents and craves with every shattered fiber of her being crumbles as an unfamiliar stallion makes his way towards her. Her heart trembles reflexively in her chest, battering itself to death against the cage of rib-bones like a trapped moth. For a moment she’s certain she’ll turn away from him, leave him glowing gold and alone like the moon herself, but exhaustion traps her, wounds her, leaves her vulnerable at his feet.
There is a wariness in those emerald eyes as she watches him come, a hesitance that bleeds like shadow over the soft angles of her delicate chestnut face. She turns her head from him when he speaks, pretending to focus on something in the distance, the glint of yellow eyes and the click of claws on stones. His voice seems dangerously friendly, almost kind – it certainly doesn’t match the darkness of the warning on his lips. She turns her head to face him, her eyes locking distrustfully on his before she can stop herself. “If I see one,” she says in a voice impossibly soft, her breath fogging like ghosts in the cool night air, “a beautiful mare with broken eyes, I’ll be sure to pass along the warning.” She resents the steel creeping into her voice, resents Makai for putting it there.
His wink disarms her if only for a moment, and she can feel the way her eyes soften and widen before the ice has a chance to harden them again. She watches him for a long moment, trying to understand him, trying to ignore the way doubt hangs over her like a gray-bellied storm cloud. “I can’t decide whether you’re trying to lighten the mood, or if you’re having a laugh at my expense.” She says and it’s a lie because she knows it’s the first. But the ache in her chest, the carved out hollow of flesh and bone, it isn’t ready to be filled with a smile. She isn’t ready. Even the lightness in his expression pushes her back from him as though she is made only of shadow.
But his expression changes for a moment and it’s like being thrown a life line. He’s less bright now, less radiant, and it’s easier for the shadow in her to creep closer. She wonders suddenly who he is, and it’s almost as though he knew what she was thinking because the answer is on his lips before she even had a chance ask it. “Dempsey." She repeats, flinching away from the renewed interest in his expression. But when her name falls from his lips her eyes sharpen like stone. “How am I supposed to trust you if you’re keeping secrets, Dempsey?" She pauses and her leathery wings lift defensively from her withers to hang darkly at either side of her ribcage. “I never gave you my name, it isn't yours to use.”
But it has to be, because that’s growth, it’s how we learn from our mistakes.
We learn how to recognize them the next time we make the very same ones.
But we don’t learn to not make them again.
The solitude, this loneliness she both resents and craves with every shattered fiber of her being crumbles as an unfamiliar stallion makes his way towards her. Her heart trembles reflexively in her chest, battering itself to death against the cage of rib-bones like a trapped moth. For a moment she’s certain she’ll turn away from him, leave him glowing gold and alone like the moon herself, but exhaustion traps her, wounds her, leaves her vulnerable at his feet.
There is a wariness in those emerald eyes as she watches him come, a hesitance that bleeds like shadow over the soft angles of her delicate chestnut face. She turns her head from him when he speaks, pretending to focus on something in the distance, the glint of yellow eyes and the click of claws on stones. His voice seems dangerously friendly, almost kind – it certainly doesn’t match the darkness of the warning on his lips. She turns her head to face him, her eyes locking distrustfully on his before she can stop herself. “If I see one,” she says in a voice impossibly soft, her breath fogging like ghosts in the cool night air, “a beautiful mare with broken eyes, I’ll be sure to pass along the warning.” She resents the steel creeping into her voice, resents Makai for putting it there.
His wink disarms her if only for a moment, and she can feel the way her eyes soften and widen before the ice has a chance to harden them again. She watches him for a long moment, trying to understand him, trying to ignore the way doubt hangs over her like a gray-bellied storm cloud. “I can’t decide whether you’re trying to lighten the mood, or if you’re having a laugh at my expense.” She says and it’s a lie because she knows it’s the first. But the ache in her chest, the carved out hollow of flesh and bone, it isn’t ready to be filled with a smile. She isn’t ready. Even the lightness in his expression pushes her back from him as though she is made only of shadow.
But his expression changes for a moment and it’s like being thrown a life line. He’s less bright now, less radiant, and it’s easier for the shadow in her to creep closer. She wonders suddenly who he is, and it’s almost as though he knew what she was thinking because the answer is on his lips before she even had a chance ask it. “Dempsey." She repeats, flinching away from the renewed interest in his expression. But when her name falls from his lips her eyes sharpen like stone. “How am I supposed to trust you if you’re keeping secrets, Dempsey?" She pauses and her leathery wings lift defensively from her withers to hang darkly at either side of her ribcage. “I never gave you my name, it isn't yours to use.”
how light carries on endlessly, even after death
Oksana