Love Is The Color Green

5

The air around him changed.

I felt extremely silly for believing the words of a man that I had just met.

My species had been created by one of the First. We had lost our nature when we could no longer feel our god. The only thing left after milenia was the hydrophilic nature everyone had. It made us kin. Also, unlike other races, mine originated from Sonder. Thus, unlike the settlers, our rules were concrete.

As our gods had made it.

Marilla excitedly came out to greet him. Not once, not until I saw him smile at her, did I ever know what it meant to break my own heart.

Unrequited.

I bounced back and forth through so many intense emotions onesidesly.

I was such a dunce.

I quietly left. My delusions would get the best of me. After all, I had already fallen for him. It was tragic how all it took was someone simply being nice to me.

I was ashamed at how low my standards were. My heart was willing to abandon my body. Reason had already sailed and me? I was left a mess of emotions. I heard his laughter as I slinked away. Ah, maybe this was what poets meant when they said that the light could be scathing.

A wicked thing.

A terrible thing.

As if teaching a pessimist the taste of optimism and leaving them irreparably changed, but now aware of how painful their reality had been.

I found myself infatuated with his smile, but like the actual thing never lasted long in this nameless city, my Sunshine might as well have been a hallucination.

The gods had never held me in their favor. I knew it well. From the scars of where wings should've been or the runes in my skin holding a secret tongue. The light? It felt suffocating.

I hummed as I made my way home.

Quietly.  As the sleepy city yawned and woke. I faded easily into the crowd. I hummed quietly. A heart breaking prayer. Slow, sad, beautiful.

It was the song of a priest who had known our god personally.  A song that they'd live again so that the priest wouldn't have to know how lonely it was to die alone.

Did god answer? No.

How could they? They had died.

The priest? He never found his spouse.

It was a chilling hym. Somehow, I felt like the embodiment of that priest. It truly was a terrible sensation.

My apartment complex had about 25 floors. With what had been left to me. I built it. Long residing tenants knew me as the landlord, while newer tenants thought of me as the peculiar neighbor.

It was a simple life.

I took the elevator instead of the stairs and used my keycard to enter the floor I lived on. I used the other side to open my door. I dumped my clothes in the washer and made my way into the shower while Giveon sang for me in the background.

I had a simple dinner.

I sat quietly in an oversized vest and my comfy panties. I stared as images flashed, spoke, and moved on the television.

So, this was what heartbreak felt like? What a damning thing.