Black Roses {Skephalo}

Notes Of A Flower Boy [Day Fourteen]

————— 17 days remaining —————

It's the fourteenth today. That's what you told me when you came. You should've laughed, rolled your eyes at me and called me some stupid name of yours. A 'memer' I think.

But you didn't.

You cried. You stayed in the black room with me, and you cried. That's all you did for an hour. Maybe even more.

I wanted to help you, god I really did. But I couldn't. The chains hold me down. The demon still has control. I'm not sure how to escape their clutches quite yet, but I'll find a way.

I promised I'll find a way, love.

You didn't say much. You just told me it was now the fourteenth. You told me everyone's worried, but they can't be as worried as you. You told me you missed me.

You're acting like I'm dead. Just because I can't tell you I'm here, doesn't mean I'm not. I've always been here, just not in the way you think. It's like that block game we play. You're in survival, but I'm in spectator. I'm still here, just more in spirit.

They don't think I am.

They think I quit the game. They tell you you're crazy, that I went yesterday and I'm not coming back. They're wrong. I never left you.

I never will.

You tell them they're wrong. Through the tears, you fight off the figures who think they know me. Who think that they can deal with every outcome in their stupid medical books.

But what if nobody wrote this problem down?

Then they deem it unsolvable. It's just sugarcoating it. You tell him I'm gone, that I'm not returning. That you think I passed hours ago.

Just tell him you think I'm dead.

The shadows approach us. They reach for the strings they believe are keeping me here. They're useless. They aren't helping me, you can't take away what is.

He won't leave me.

They fed the angel lies. My angel thinks the strings will save me. You screams to the shadows, smothering them with the sunlight. They fade away into the background, and you return to me.

You hold my hand, telling me you won't let them take me away from you. You're wrong, angel. You believe in them too much.

They can't take me away from you, only the demon can.

I'll sever the chains that hold me here. I don't know when, but I will. Someday I'll get out of the blackness. Someday I'll do something.

There's nothing here. There's just your light, a candle in the darkness. Your face isn't there, nobody's is, but I don't need that to know you're beautiful.

The demon emerges again, telling me it's time to go. I try to do something, anything to show you I'm here. But I can't.

You watch me as I fade, silent tears rolling down your face. The numbness stings me, and I welcome it with open arms.

Don't cry firefly...

~~~

When I return from the black, you're still here. The world looks like a pencil sketch, rough outlines without colour. They show me the blank room, one that wouldn't have been much brighter even with colour.

They show me you. You're pretty, I'm not sure why it took so long to notice. Our hands remain interlocked, fingers intertwined. You're caressing my hand with one of yours, slowly, delicately. You tell me that you know I'm still here.

So now you understand.

You tell me you have to go. You tell me you'll visit me whenever you can, at least once a ya until I wake up. You tell me some names, that they're worried about me. The only name I need remember currently is yours. Then you disappear, your light sniffed out as you fade out of  the dark world I now call home.

How could you leave me here?

The demon does. They want me here, all to themselves. The angel limits their capabilities, stops my drowning with the notebooks.

The demon is angry. They don't like the angel.

So I don't like them.

They tell me I tried to burn something. I tried to destroy them. I thought that would work.

They call me names. They tell me I'm wrong. They call me stupid, they call me weak. They call me useless, they call me worthless.

She says I'm nothing.

I tell her I don't care.

Then the pain blinds me, reminding me of the day I fell in here. It suffocates me, squeezing the air from my lungs. They try to smother my hope, dampen my spirits.

They can hurt me now you're gone.

Why would you leave me, firefly...