let me whisper in your ear, star pony

[isakov]

throw me in the water, don’t think about the splash i will create
leave me at the altar, knowing all the things you just escaped

He thinks he can see it sometimes.
The solid thing at the root of the shimmer he sees in them.

And where he once thought it was their soul, he now thinks it must be their heart. Their want. Their desire. But he has not yet worked out what it means that he can see it. That he can sense it so deeply that he can almost taste it.

He looks to them as he passes, peering past their faces to the thing at the center of them. He can feel some new flicker. Like he’d felt in the river when Sleaze had told him he loved the quiet and he had gone so still that he’d scarcely needed to draw breathe. He could be quiet and he’d said as much.

But he does not know how to interrogate it quite yet. He is young still and naive. The magic is not meant for him now. It is meant for someone older, someone who understands love. So he gives up and moves quiet through the forest, the space around him softly illuminated by the stars on his skin. The curling galaxies.

He encounters no one here. It is quiet and still in the underbrush and he comes to rest there in the darkness, breathing softly. He is alone here with his heartbeat.

isakov