The archive of the forgotten

The better one ~ let the earth swallow us

A fox walks through the field, its paw damaged, its face scruffy, it is diseased, it is grisly, it is hunted, it is tired. But still it goes on, the steady pace of death crawling up to him as he crawls further and further away from it. You can hear the faint ticking of the clock in its bones, Turning his head towards me, showing it is still aware of his surroundings. It is grisly, half of his face has rotted away, a miracle he is still breathing, or a curse. A miracle he still wants to. Or doesn't. The grey in his fur shining like stolen silver in the sun, it must be old, it must have had a long happy life, even with its hardships. Or not. The temperature is too heavy for him, the flies circle around the exposed teeth through the wounds, waiting for it to fester, creeping in his body till it destroys itself. It reeks, it rots, it works against him. It is ugly, it should already be dead, one eye milky white..... another creature must have done this to him. Or not. Perhaps he has thrown itself from a cliff, hoping to blame somebody else. It looks beastly, it looks vile. How does it survive? How does it keep going? Why doesn't it lie down, and let the earth eat him? Perhaps something of beauty will be left as he feeds himself to the earth? What is so precious about suffering?
Perhaps it is beauty? Kindness? I want to stand up, pursue it, show it some kind of emotion, study it, stare at it, smile at it, assuring it that it is beautiful. But as soon as it sees the monster that I am to him he runs away, too quickly for its debilitating look. Or not. Maybe it wasn't that damaged after all. What a strange creature, that is what they must think of me. Maybe it doesn't think of me at all.

A breath escapes my mouth, gasping in absolute exhaustion. Beckoning a study of what I feel, and how I don't know. What it is, what it was, what I am supposed to. Disrespect cannot apply when you hate yourself, vanity is a privilege, and arrogance has been beaten out of me. Maybe it is anger, the thing I no longer feel rearing its imperfect and intricate head. But it gives no release, because I do not have it and if I am still capable of it, it has long been sedated. It has disappeared, or at least I have forgotten how to find it. The green grass weaves spiral into insanity, trapping my feet with their hidden blades, the warmth of the wind suffocating my thoughts, suffocating my skin, suffocating me. How I'd want to feel something, something other than the incredible urge to be different, to be dead, to be beautiful, to be smart. The incredible urge to fill my lungs with fire and my veins with poison, treating me kinder than the world as I forget how hurt I am. I want to lie down till my body does not feel like my own, I want my flesh to rot till it has created new life, this time better, maybe even beautiful, maybe even blonde? At least something blue, at least some improvement, I beg of the world. I am not a fox, I am not courageous enough to walk with a rotting body, and I can already feel the stench setting in, I just don't know when it began. I look at my hands, the weight of the gun is heavy, the cold is reassuring, the power within it unfair. It grants you something that you normally would have to fight for, the power to kill so easily, without the knowledge of blood seeping into the cracks of your skin. A child could kill, an adult could massacre. No longer the fittest. only the one who didn't trust the world anymore, the one that trades their uneasy sanity for power. Oh world, oh country, oh things that I am supposed to love, who will give me answers? How long can I sit here, till my legs no longer work, fuse with the moss and give up on me? How much longer must I take this? How much longer till I'm taller? How much longer to be grown? How much longer to have beauty? Will this be the only thing I've known? How much longer till I'm done? How much longer till there no pain left? This world was never made for me, why have I persisted so long? Why won't I die when others unwillingly lie down every day? Why can nothing show me how to be deserving. I do not want to be stuck in this hopelessness. I do not want to be surrounded by flies, waiting for my demise.
But I cannot get up....
This bog is swallowing me and perhaps it is for the better. I itch the old scars on my arm and recall a certain line Sostrate told me when we were talking about addiction.... You give up everything, for one thing, and that'll destroy you. Have I been my own undoing? Was there still value in my suffering when it was done upon me? Presenting something that motivated me to fight it, but now, I am no different than Eliana, spoiled rotten, and unhappy with a wrong word spoken upon her, upon me. I thought this beauty, this rest, this fortune would tame me, but I am still feral, but my teeth rotted away. Do not take sugar, indulgence is weakness, it'll be your death.