Silently Sweetening; Silently Sickening

one: falling

You think it's there, but you turn, and it is gone.

But it was there; watching, waiting, sizing you up and down and sideways.

It thinks you were once a worthy opponent, once upon another life. But your worthiness has fled with the blood in your veins, the salt in your eyes.

And yet you, the unworthy opponent, do nothing.

You simply turn, and it is gone.

﹏

Some days, you think, it's almost okay. Some days, when the sun is shining just so and the breeze is still or cooling just right, and you don't stumble over your own hands and mistakes as you watch helplessly on, you can almost find a serenity in it.

But then you open your eyes, and the peace is shattered with the glass of the bottle. The calm is broken by you falling down, down, down to the ground in a heap of unconscious bruises and pain.

And the blissful hum of your subconscious is interrupted by the sting of kick to your fragile ribs.

You have no refuge from it.

But some days, it seems as if it isn't there.

Those are, perhaps, the best days; the halcyon, bittersweet, nostalgia days, so few and far between.

﹏

You can feel those eyes.

Those beautiful, beautiful (hate me love me hate you love you oh and confusion is just so sweet, isn't it) eyes, which burn a blue hot heated hole through your soul, shattering your will and leaving you to cave and cry and die and love and lie and simply breathe because everything else suddenly hurts too much to even think about, let alone do.

Those eyes are angry, but you are unable to fathom the reason.

(did you leave the stove on last night?

Oh, but you were just so tired and oh-so sore...)

You are so, so afraid to turn around and face them, but you must, because they demand you do so.

Slowly, agonisingly slowly, you turn, lamb meeting axe head-on.

Your cheek smarts, and there is suddenly screaming everywhere, reaching your ears, reaching your heart, reaching your soul...

But you turned around, so you say nothing. You do nothing.

You are an unworthy opponent.

﹏

Now, there are kisses and hugs and apologies and pleas for forgiveness-

Unnecessary, for you always forgive her. Always, always.

And yes, you know, this is unhealthy, and yes, you know, you are unhealthy, and yes, you know, you don't care anymore.

You can't care anymore.

Because these moments, when you can taste that familiar halcyon nectar in her honey hair, can smell that old nostalgic sugar on her skin, can taste that bittersweet gold rush on her lips, you know you deserve her, deserve all of her, and you know you will not be able to leave her.

Not ever.

And that, perhaps, is the heartbreak of it all.

﹏

You would do anything for her. You mean this in the most sincere, meaningful way. You would do anything for her.

She sleeps now, a dormant force of rage and fury and Hell and calm and peace and Heaven, and you can't help but feel an ache, a yearning, feening, keening ache in your chest, for you know this is but a nighttime farce. Come morning, she will have awakened and kickstarted the circuit again, the fuse to the wires.

As you gaze at her perfection, pressed in soft duvet linens and twilit amongst the ruffles of the sham and sheet, you feel that ache morph into a gathering behind your eyelids, a liquid manifestation of your sorrow spilling down onto the expensive bedding and staining your pillow.

Oh, how you long to simply reach out and touch her, to hold this delusion in your arms, close and forever, but you know you cannot. For your interference would shatter that wondrous image into a flurry of irritation and aggravation.

So you settle for looking on in wounded pining at that which you shall never have for your own. That beautiful, beautiful thing which is never to be yours outside of your fantasies and dreams.

You know it is unhealthy, but you cannot stop.

You are too far gone, too far invested, too far in and falling way too fast to stop before you hit the ground with an abrupt and agonied groan as the breath is forced from your lungs, as the blood races out of your body.

Perhaps you have already hit the ground and survived the fall.

(But you know that, if you hit it later or before, you didn't make it away. That fall ended you.)

The moon is so cruel, but so is the Mistress, to have set such a devastating path for you.

But you couldn't change courses, even if you tried.

You're too far in to go back.

This, you know.

(And you know that people aren't supposed to be painted in pretty blues and purples and unsightly greens and yellows, but you don't think you can care anymore.)