how much heartache can we take?
Scarlet filigree, tainted wounds, I know them, I feel them even now, as I glance over the pale mare's frame. She stretches bone white, and there, there are the waves of blood, rivulets of crimson that run on, and on. I feel my own scars, the thick ridges burning now, a memory, the pain. It seems long ago that I had stumbled upon the Gates, a flurry of perspiration and blood, of iron lungs and leaden limbs. My head tilts to the right, walnut eyes observing quietly, knitting together the picture of the grey mare. If there were a mirror, a gentle reflection of what I had have looked like. I am sure, I am almost certain, that I would quiver, bend and bow to my knees and wish for eternal sleep. If only, if only I could recall them, and how, the how. It is always the how, and the why, but never the when.
Twisted chocolate ears get lost in the creamy mounds of silver mane, lost within the knots of twigs and burrs of autumn's reign. They listen, gently quivering against her voice. She speaks of trees, of roots and my walnut eyes glisten, alight with a sliver of memory. The Gates, they were gloriously verdant in colour, many, many trees and seeds. They burrow into the soil, like wildflowers and mint, they grow and they grow just like the mother tree. they were all seeds once, we were all seeds once. 'Home.' I say, the word capturing my lips with a soft caress. Her quiet discontent made me feel as though, as though there were many things underneath the surface. Bone deep, sinew torn. I quiver, the very memory of blood, of fire and hate, of ash and ruin. It violates my peaceful mind for now, and I stand there, idling. Whispering nothing, and yet everything.
My eyelids close, breaching the world. I see them, the cuts, so deep that the red torrents like wine, down my ribcage, my shoulders, my neck. the ground is cool and yet throbs with life beneath. Runs red with the blood of many, ash from the cinders that fall like snow. I quiver, every inch of my skin a knot and a never-ending puzzle. I sit and explore, piecing together and together until I get some form of a picture and then they all fall to the floor and i'm left trying to decipher them over and over.
I pull my attention back to the pale mare. Wandering eyes meeting hers, burning, burning into her with an intensity that rivals the sun above, the harsh winter around the corner. 'Home. The Gates are Home.' I say once again, faded, broken and clipped. 'Seeds are sown, and trees grow. Many, many trees.' a purposeful paw at the moist earth, drawing a sense of knowing from the mother earth below. I inhale, breathing in the life of autumn, the life of the newcomer. 'You chop, you pull and you tear, but they always grow back. Given time, given time.' Gentle, gentle. My words slip and fall, gracing the air with wisps and fragments of all that I know, all that I see. But broken little girls, they see much and yet do not comprehend what it means. I see much, broken and fragmented and I piece them together in my own way.
'I am Reuen. Ruin. Reuen.' Because even though Mast and Jason, Wichita and Fiasko say, they call me gentle, they call me friend. I know, I know deep down I am ruin, I am ruined and ruin. The red eyes of my nightmare plague me, chase me, whisper sweet nothings in my ear, and over and over again, I am ruin. I cause the ruin, the pain. The throbbing scars torn over my thin frame, they are because of me, I know it, I know it.
'Who is the ghost, that bleeds, that haunts? Who is the ghost that wanders with eyes like glass?' because ghosts need places to haunt, they need an existence to live, to dwell. I step forward, closer, closer, audaciously so, extending my patchy scarred muzzle to the girl. Offering a gentle hand if there ever was one, in the darkness and in the light. I throw her that rope, that falls and falls into the eternal pit of blackness. 'The Gates can save you, like they saved me. They are safe. Safe.'
R E U E N
little broken girl of the gates