the space above my ears.

How I Feel About Iron Henry

The unwritten story begins like this;

You went to the well.

He was there, part of him.

Next to him was something else, wrapped in lace, and when you squinted, you saw the missing parts of him in its stomach.

You smiled and as the corners of your mouth drew upwards, your freshly mended heart stretched in sync with your lips, tearing down the center.

Swallowing down your private embarrassment, your nails dug into your palms.

You got what you asked for, right?

Pathetic, a raspy voice whispers in the trees.

So infatuated that the bonds broke by a smile from across the kingdom.

Letting it go, insisting that the carriage isn't broken, telling the King's son half the truth.

As something in your chest is beginning to tremble, rattling softly like a song, you make an oath to yourself, to him, and to her.

To exhale the bitterness, that is real love.

So you will exhale.

To arrive in the gardens to escort your soulmate home with his new bride, that is everything.

So you will escort them.

And you know, yes, you must know that she will not love him as you do.

You will not, however, know why hitting the wall was the cure.

You won't know why it had to be her.

But you will make peace with that.

Either way, you will let it go.

You will let it go because it is not what she gives, but what she receives that makes him whole.

And for you as well; it is not what the prince gives, but what he receives that makes your heart swell big enough to burst through the iron you wrapped around it.

And her, with her gold ball.

Her, with her mindless beauty.

Her, with everything you don't possess.

Her, lying to him, leaving him, disgusted by him.

Her, only kind when his blue eyes and curls revealed themselves.

You deserve him, do you not?

You were the one leading troops into the forest to recover what might be only a body.

You hurt more than she was even capable of hurting, and somehow you ended up little more than the footnote at the end.

People remember the story about the princess and the frog, the glorified memoir about how true love kills the will of a witch.

They don't remember you.

Something about that hurts, hurts worse than the shards of metal drifting about inside you.

It's a warm hurt, though, the most tranquil kind of ache.

If everything breaks, you will be there with your iron.

If not, you will still sleep at night.

And when the king's son is gasping on a kitchen table of some cottage and his wife is back home in the room above the foyer bathing in milk, you will be there.

You'll hold his hand, and whisper gentle nothings into his ear while a doctor pulls sheets of fabric from his flesh wound.

It's wrapped around the bone, clinging to him with all its strength and he's crying out, blinded and deafened by the pain.

Somehow, in that disembodied state, that otherworldly agony, all he can think about is candles.

Candles and you, Henry, sitting next to him at dusk somewhere quiet, talking about how everything has changed so much.

Making a conspiracy out of why the air smells like cherries when all they used to wish for was light.

Looking in those eyes of yours, there's an icy coil tightening in his core.

This is not the person who let him die in the woods.

And he doesn't say this because he's in denial, because he knows he would forgive this one for burning the world down.

He says it because he knows this man before him and he knows you could not truly hate something that was written by God.

Your spirit is only sad and frustrated and lonely.

And it loves, god, does it love...

You would throw yourself away, die just to save one thing at sea level.

You'd stay underwater forever if he asked.

You'd catch stars with your bare hands, letting them burn through your calloused palms and you'd never give up, even when they smoldered through your pockets.

He'd see himself through your eyes, swallowing nails that were never previously his, all to feel like he's paid off the debt he never owed.

Calling for it, but wishing it away when no one is watching.

His body having him and then a damaged him, and all perfect harm inside both.

He will know himself.

The sun will rise and he'll look up at you, blinking the restless sleep from his eyes.

So raw, laying there, tired and certainly short on blood.

And in that state when his energy is so spent he can't muster up enough to lie, you'll ask it to him.

And whatever the answer,

You will bring him home.