02-11-2021, 01:50 AM
i ain’t the strongest hickory that your ax has ever felled
but i’m a hickory just as well, i’m a hickory all the same
but i’m a hickory just as well, i’m a hickory all the same
He is here all the time, and she feels guilty.
Her entire life has been spent trying to convince him to stay, without ever actually saying it. She has spent almost all of her nights and all of her days turning over all the small things she has done wrong or the ways that she could be different—ways to be enough that he would not want to leave. It had hurt most when they were younger, but she learned to live with it. The pain beat in her chest right alongside of her heartbeat, until she wasn't sure she would know what to do if it ever left.
And yet for all the ways her heart has broken for him, her love has never once wavered.
If anything the desperate hurt had strengthened it, because she loved him more than she loved herself. She loved him enough to know that he stayed at her side only because he had nowhere else to go, perhaps having finally drained the world dry, or too inconvenienced by the golden tears that trail him wherever he goes. She loved him enough that the thought made her feel guilty, and that she would give anything for him to be himself, even if it meant he was gone.
She is alongside him now in the dark, her copper skin flush against his. The warmth that she felt to have him so close all the time lived side by side with her guilt, but it was easier to forget about it when she could feel the gentle inhale and exhale of his ribs on hers. “I don’t know,” she answers him, her voice just above a whisper. Ever since the dark had fallen she found herself afraid of being too loud. She was sure that sometimes she heard the rattled breathing of something alien and strange, the heavy presence of something that did not belong here. “But I hope it comes back soon,” there is a tinge of worry that lingers in her voice, but she tries to chase it away by pressing her lips to the familiar slope of his shoulder, “I miss being able to actually see you.”
Her entire life has been spent trying to convince him to stay, without ever actually saying it. She has spent almost all of her nights and all of her days turning over all the small things she has done wrong or the ways that she could be different—ways to be enough that he would not want to leave. It had hurt most when they were younger, but she learned to live with it. The pain beat in her chest right alongside of her heartbeat, until she wasn't sure she would know what to do if it ever left.
And yet for all the ways her heart has broken for him, her love has never once wavered.
If anything the desperate hurt had strengthened it, because she loved him more than she loved herself. She loved him enough to know that he stayed at her side only because he had nowhere else to go, perhaps having finally drained the world dry, or too inconvenienced by the golden tears that trail him wherever he goes. She loved him enough that the thought made her feel guilty, and that she would give anything for him to be himself, even if it meant he was gone.
She is alongside him now in the dark, her copper skin flush against his. The warmth that she felt to have him so close all the time lived side by side with her guilt, but it was easier to forget about it when she could feel the gentle inhale and exhale of his ribs on hers. “I don’t know,” she answers him, her voice just above a whisper. Ever since the dark had fallen she found herself afraid of being too loud. She was sure that sometimes she heard the rattled breathing of something alien and strange, the heavy presence of something that did not belong here. “But I hope it comes back soon,” there is a tinge of worry that lingers in her voice, but she tries to chase it away by pressing her lips to the familiar slope of his shoulder, “I miss being able to actually see you.”
plumeria
@[jarris]