[open] my heart is thrilled by the still of your hand

[cancer]

---

cancer

He is still not used to being alive.
Death was easier - it was nothing, and isn’t nothing always easier? He had not fought to wake. There had been nothing to come back for. His list of lovers is long, but presumably they are as dead as he is was. Same for the children, no doubt, maybe even their children. He isn’t sure, exactly, how much time had passed between his death and his rough, awful awakening.

He still has not been able to wake his magic. He would have assumed it dead, but he can still feel it, sometimes, an itch under the skin. Perhaps it’s like a phantom limb, he thinks, itching but nonexistent.

He does move easier, now - more like a living thing than a dead one, which is a start. He cannot say the same for his mind, his thoughts still feel sluggish, but he knows he was never the brightest thing, and perhaps he has simply forgotten what stupidity feels like.
He moves into more familiar ground - he had known the meadow well, in his days. It has changed, some, but the feel of it is the same, and he likes that. He needs something that still hints at sameness, something familiar to cling to.

you ask me about love and I tell you about violence

Photo by Emily Goodhart