HIS GAZE LIFTS & STARES OUT ONTO THE LAKE, the quiet blue shifting like a lullaby. reality is like an awful dream, a mismatch of memories that make sense only when it wants to. & he is a lucid dreamer. reality stings his eyes, as though he is underwater with his eyes wide open. the fall is never pleasant, but to hold on, to cling & postpone the end is forever torturous. ❝ … i am nothing like this lake, nothing like its carelessness. ❞ he says quietly, immediately. the surface of the water shivers; the veneer of his person shivers, too. his silence is a suffocation. his existence is an execution. he turns his gaze to the mouth of the lake, the penumbra of land & water. he leans over, picking up a jagged pebble. as he examines it carefully, he straightens, holding the small rock between the plush of his thumb & index finger. for a moment, the entire world is suspended around him.
HE SHOULD'VE FALLEN. HE SHOULD HAVE A BROKEN SKULL, but instead, his fingers are white with pressure, his nails deeply embedded into life. he clings desperately. like all things once & no longer human, he opts for savagery. he climbs past the teeth, the bone, the cruel flesh of those more real than he is. ❝ do you dream about it? falling, that is. ❞ he is speaking of the landing, the crash. what waits for you at the end? a rock or a hard place; water or snow. ❝ i would rather fly. ❞
there it is, the beginning of a smile, one that can be found dangling over the windowsill, wrung dry yet still wounded, stark white against tranquility. a cautionary tale : do not trust the heart / do not press against the lines cutting across your palms / do not read too much into the absence of faith. she shrugs, words sliding over the slope of slim shoulders. “ & i don’t get to choose. but flying can be nice, i think. lots of people want to do that. ” it is never fair, she would have said at some point in an imaginary past. moroseness was devoured during the after - fight. she cradled his skull in her arms not unlike her dolls. she chose. she chose. i’m with him. i can’t leave him. i’m falling. i’m happy. god, happy is such a well cursed thing. i can’t have anything else, so why is it making me smile until my mouth bleeds? it made for a lovely bedtime story. at that thought, she finally turns to look at the man. he is holding something. maybe his existence. maybe a confirmation.
“ i do. it’s not unpleasant when it’s a dream though, yeah? ” he is pale against paleness, the desperate cold radiated from him curling its fingers around her. it reminds her of a fatal crash. it makes the body’s insides twist, lurch forward, head spinning. then blood meets earth, bone meets river. this world is built on curses, it would seem, but he, unlike her, is not surrendering. she thinks she would like to feel the grip of her anchor like that. she smiles at him, a smooth curve that edges toward weariness. was she to don a mask, he would certainly see through it anyway, so there is no point.
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