KayJay

[few-loose-wires]

I'm not afraid of the fall. That will feel freeing-like flying.

I'm afraid of what will happen when I reach the ground. If nobody is there, my bones will shatter, leaving me crippled. Worse yet is the idea of you catching me, helping me up and asking if I'm okay before leaving me to this empty, bleak house. My heart would shatter, leaving me destroyed.

I'm not afraid of the fall. I'm afraid of you regretting catching me.

[few-loose-wires]

Maybe if we combined forces-if we worked together, we could save everyone. Maybe we could save each other.

My skin is peeling from my muscle as the world melts into white sound and the aftershock of grenades. Maybe we could fix the world together if only you gave me a chance, "but," you say, "the world is broken." Little ghosts plant purple hyacinths and lilly wreaths on the graves of all my past failures. The weight on my shoulders is golden and painful (I can't save the ones I care for-the ones that matter. And to me, everything matters). The bruises and cuts weigh me down and whispers doubts and regret until all I can think is- ithurtsithurtsithurtsirhu-

I don't just want to save the world.

I want to save you too.

[few-loose-wires]

This Feels Like Alone

When you disassociate, it’s… strange. 

It’s like forgetting everything that ever mattered. It’s just you - or at least a shard of you -  sitting in the middle of the kitchen listening quietly to a stranger telling you that you have hopes and dreams and goals. “You want to be an actress and have a big family and spend more time with your siblings!” they say, but all you can think about is how weird it would be to slit your throat with the kitchen knife only a few feet away. 

The stranger whispers these things, but it all feels submerged in water. I think the stranger is me; I just can’t seem to remember who I am: how I feel when I see my siblings laugh or what I want to do for my next birthday… 

Who was I? 

… 

It’s just me. Trying to remember what emotions feel like and why my body has a sudden weight to it. 

It’s just me. Trying to think of what I’m doing this for. 

It’s just me. Trying to remember to love my family because they’d cry if I left them (do I care?)

It’s just me- this house is so quiet. So lonely. 

I think it’s just me.

[few-loose-wires]

The thing about dread is that it starts off meek.

Too shy to tap on your shoulder. Always lingering and stuttering to the point that you think it's best to just leave it alone. It's easy to dismiss it. After awhile (too long), it gains courage: just enough to rattle you, and once that seed is planted, you can't pretend to ignore it. It looms over me, breathing down my neck and nipping at my edges. Dread sits there, constantly tapping my shoulder.

This doesn't feel right. It never felt right.

[few-loose-wires]

The thing about dread is that it starts off meek.

Too shy to tap on your shoulder. Always lingering and stuttering to the point that you think it's best to just leave it alone. It's easy to dismiss it. After awhile (too long), it gains courage: just enough to rattle you, and once that seed is planted, you can't pretend to ignore it. It looms over me, breathing down my neck and nipping at my edges. Dread sits there, constantly tapping my shoulder.

This doesn't feel right. It never felt right.

[few-loose-wires]

This faulty feeling of safety was comforting but a white lie all the same. None of these bubbled moments had made sense. (Their little bubble filled with small flickering candles, lilting banter, and a mix of beautiful mistakes that made the most exquisite mosiac. Only them- the world outside those high walls a soft melding of shrill violins and the wind making an undeniably unexpected work of odd and gorgeous art. Much like their relationship itself.)

Maybe a little less sense was good.

[few-loose-wires]

Everything is so simple and easy that it's cruel that the statement came so late. It's silly how all they can do now is stay together in their room where the walls are dilapidated and the lightbulb flickers to a beat no one else can hear.

[few-loose-wires]

There was something terribly small curling up in his chest at that moment. It allowed the caterpillars to roam freely through his stomach and meaningless words to poke aimlessly at the tip of his tongue. Feeling this way was vulnerable and gag-inducing; it felt fragile and nice and unlike anything he ever deserved. This small thing curled and coddled around his chest and grew into his throat reaching like vines that made him want to say stupid things like "I love you."

(He supposes that's how he felt.)

He detested it with every fiber and action of his being. He loathed the softness that came with it. He abhorred the almost smiles and hesitant care he received in return. He hated it, he hated it, he hated it.

(He loved it.)

[few-loose-wires]

"I-" he gripped at the hair clinging to his scalp. He just wanted to feel relief. It was so difficult to live with his chest so light and his head in the stars. His feet barely touched the ground these days and it had been a fear for awhile now that he would one day float away and nobody would notice.

[few-loose-wires]

Inevitable: all of it.

Even as I wished against the end, I knew it was coming. I saw it from a mile away, yet refused to believe that this is how the story goes-because this can't be how it goes. Bloody and broken and just like the rest of our lives. This was supposed to be a somewhat decent ending.

It was foolish in the greatest way to hope against fate itself. To think that there is a way for this to end differently- to end happily.

God, just give me this one thing.

[few-loose-wires]

There Are Worse Ways To End

Love is, he supposes, just a pleasant poison. Watching the sunset he understood that; being with them, blindly loving and them returning with just as much conviction. He felt that if he continued on this path, he'd be loved until all that’s left is pieces, and he's pretty okay with that. (It's a perfectly terrible way to go.)

[few-loose-wires]

You’re Just So Pretty in Your Pain

Humans were fragile. They bruised so simply and were fast to anger. 

It was easy to recognize the spider web cracks that skittered along their arms and thighs, leaving trails of bits of their soul wherever they walked. Some were easy to see, others took longer. All the same, humans hurt and scarred the same. 

This boy: he was barely there anymore. His frostbitten exterior spread around him making the people he touched numb with the cold. The place where he once wore his heart on his sleeve was cracked and almost unrecognizable. From the corners of his mouth deeps gaping cracks lifted up towards his eyes in a twisted and dark smile. Nothing reached those eyes. 

This boy was hurt. 

[few-loose-wires]

Would You Mind Stitching Up My Heart?

(Alternatively: Foolish Little Boy)

Walking home in the setting sun, he wanted to be anywhere but here. His mind a reflection of broken thoughts, broken feelings, and broken pieces. Fixing the mess the only way he knew how: with Scotch tape and school glue and anything he could find. (The resulting product a shattered, ugly mosaic.) All abortive measures of course; the pieces crack further until they’re too small to use your silly little glue bottle on. 

[few-loose-wires]

Let’s Not and Say We Did

The words rumbled heavily in the air, settling stiffly on his lips. If this was the climax of the story, he thought to himself, even the violins would be screeching in disapproval. The cacophony of beautifully frantic pitches melded together in the silence that they shared each other. This could not be the end. This horrible and strained epiphany. The violins built into a crescendo along with the pressure and the room started to feel like an overflowing cup and a gaping hole at the same time. 

“He should have killed me.” His voice was strong in its conviction, but cracked all the same. (It would have been easier is left unsaid.)

“Would he have been better off?” Would you? 

The only reply given is a small wince and a half-hearted “no.” Even as he thinks about it, just as he’s dwelled on before, the answer is breath wrenching--a shock to the system. The feeling is familiar and all too strong. The shivers that creep up his back and the absent expression that worms its way onto his face; so many long night spent thinking about the ‘what ifs’ and the ‘if onlys’. After the loss of breath and shivering comes flames, roaring up like indignation because how dare they--how dare the world which they live in and the circumstances they are possessed with twist its knife so cruelly. Fate herself conspires only to entertain herself in the only way she can: through pain. 

To let the world go to hell in such a way--something truly merciless must have been inflicted upon Fate. 

The violins have calmed--if that is even a possibly. This is the part of the soundtrack known as his life where the symbols calm from that of a boiling pot of water to an almost serene simmer. Every once in a while, the violins remind him of their presence; neverending in their sneaky and vile shrieks that sound like teasing. Even the instruments laugh at such a predicament. 

The world itself bears that hideous folly. 

[few-loose-wires]

You’re Tearing Me Apart

You were supposed to stay here. The gravity of the situation presented itself as a tar-like thought, slowly washing over me and enveloping my senses. 

I could tell I had fallen only from the dull and far off ache of my knees. This wasn't how it was supposed to end; you're body still cold and motionless with only the faint trace of a less than reassuring smile. It hurt even more to look at you now. 

How selfish I had been to beg you to stay alive and want you to console me. She smiled in her last breaths. I asked her to stay alive; she had been there for me but I only provided her the comfort of begging.

She should have stayed. 

[few-loose-wires]

There Is Fight In You Yet

V grabs him with a little struggle and pulls him in front of himself. Briefly, my mind flashes to the tale of Achilles’ heel.

“Drop the weapon or he dies.” Vee’s face was hard and determined as my breath caught in my throat. The man who saved me, taught me how to live, to be alive. My stomach hurt at the thought of his body dropping to the ground. Without him- -without him nothing. Where he dies so does all my will to go on. The whole reason I strayed. Vee shoved him to the ground hard, gun still tentatively trained and cocked. I stood on the ground of a possible execution. “What’s more important to you? Him or your great ‘mission?’ You two can leave safely right now. Let it go.” I wanted to scream. Him, him, him: it will always be him. 

He elbowed at V before looking to me in a chaotic upheaval. “Don’t listen. Everything they say is a lie.” V kicked his back and his chest hit the floor in a noise all too loud compared to my violent thoughts. “Please,” he wheezed, “Finish what you set out to do. You can go on without me.”

My vision swam at the thought of having it any other way. I dropped the weapon with a heavy relief. 

   It was over. 

[few-loose-wires]

Poison

"Can you feel it yet: coursing through your viens?"

My head felt like air and led all at the same time while my lungs pumped viciously. It hurt. To breath, to feel, to look her in the eyes and see her frowning. Her brows were violently furrowed as she gnawed at her lower lip and leaned over me. Her hands hovered just slightly over my form- not touching, but so, so close.

How dare she- how dare she look worried. Having the audacity to look apologetic and- and scared. The least she could have done would have been to kill me with certainty. Without all the hesitation and regret.

About the time when I expected my thoughts to become dull and washed out, they screamed: every word, every detail, every sound. My skull pounded with the information in a hauntingly intense and erratic pattern. Every buzz and stimulus sent to my brain, which was slowly withering away, was loud and I- I just- end it please. This overwhelming pain.

I wish she had just shot me. The only thing that was dull to me was the sound of my screaming as it came into focus, slowing down as my throat became numb. Numb, numb, numb. It- I'm finally safe. (What a relative term: safe. Safe from what exactly?) My organs weren't working as they should be, (but I was safe from reality).

I was stuck in a jar of molasses; my air being sucked away as the world became lethargic. Vision blurred together and- oh, just black.

I never knew how beautiful the back of my eyelids were.