anywaysss here's a byler poem i wrote in a fit of inspiration since hollow boy by @indybaggins is still and will forever remain on my mind, i fear... oh, and it's from mike's perspective, because duh. it's kinda long but i hope someone enjoys it.
turns out we're not so different, you and i
different from each other, i mean,
matching shivers wrecking both of our bodies, matching crystals framing two pairs of eyes; frozen, reflecting no light, or so i'd say if i didn't know better, if this bone-deep cold within me was anything to go by,
but you and i both know that i'm a walking, talking lie
but now i'm frozen in time, stuck on the day i first became what i am now by embracing nothing other than the rotten parts of me, unwillingly, just because i already knew deep down the things now long since coating my skin.
i knew, and i know, that all i'll ever be is rotten, glazed over, hollow underneath a polished layer of even more lies; they're the better kind, white as frost and snow and the fog on your windows on the day i was aglow in your shadow,
my body buzzing in time with yours
turns out they're not so different, pain and pleasure; whether internal or external, i will never get enough of either one,
but i'd give up them both to go back in time, to embrace you rather than my own rotten self,
to feel nothing at first and then everything all at once, in any form, really,
in your arms, the warmest of places in which i've resided once or twice before but never long enough to remain aglow once i leave.
invite me in again, promise me light,
and whatever you do, don't leave me when i end up on my knees in your shadow of my own accord again, in my own typical fashion,
do all of that and i'll be yours until the beginning of time, and i mean it this time, i really do.
hold me until then, let the first thing i see when the dust settles just to instantly rise again in time with the sudden ticking of every clock, aglow in the light that comes from within you,
please, god, let it be you.
these are the final wishes of a man frozen in time, forever stuck in his final moments,
a man who belongs to no one, not himself nor the grim reaper or the light in his life,
a man who'd rather remain this way than give his heart up to another on a silver platter while yearning, hopelessly as ever, for the golden rays coming from within the one he used to privately, selfishly, call his own and no one else's, the one who'll never truly leave him in ways that matter.
he is me, you are him who is everything,
mine only for the time being, mine only every now and then in one quick, simple moment
of movement leaving dusty shelves aglow,
of friction leaving rusty nerves alight, deeper,
of cruel words burying long forgotten nails deeper, deeper, until they fit snugly as if they're meant to hurt and not be heard, i'm trying, please, not be seen, please, not dare to exist,
and just like that the moment has passed; it always does, doesn't it? slow down, rewind,
but you're not here anymore,
god, will, you're not here anymore.
you're long gone and i'm coming down, only now realising that maybe i was wrong and maybe we are different in all the ways that matter most, ways that no matching shivers can make up for,
because your breath is warm no matter whose skin it hits, you're alive even when it's cold, but you'd rather reside somewhere where it's not, wouldn't you? somewhere far away from me?
your lips form words that cross borders, i hear them all the way from where you are, wherever that may be, and i wish mine were bold like that, but they're not and you're gone and it doesn't matter what i say to you because it doesn't matter what you say to me in response because i know better now, i do, i know that you don't know better than to cling to me like crystals in my eyelashes and i know that when it comes to you, i know best, i always have and i always will,
but i'm not meant for you, or perhaps you're not meant to follow rules... perhaps there are brave boys out there whose skin was made to be torn by your unintentional cruelty and kissed by your lips, turning moist from your warm breath, and perhaps you'll even breathe life into someone who used to think that he was beyond saving,
but i'll never be one of those boys because all your warmth does to me nowadays is scare whatever life i have left out of me, making it escape me in the form of exhales that have no business imitating your softness and words that have no right to be so daring, and you know that i can't afford being brave but god, will, having you be brave for my own sake is worse by far,
and none of this was ever meant to be personal, none of this was ever meant to be deeper than the depths of the human body that even a total stranger could reach, but the truth remains that regardless of how distant and how cold you and i grow we will never be strangers, and this was a fact long before you touched my body and my every frostbite turned into something akin to a sunburn, peeling off of me in a way that made me feel so disgustingly bare every single time,
and i don't have it in me to blame you for that, because how could i when i was the one who selfishly let you in with no intent on making you stay? i didn't think you'd want to, but you did, and you swore you'd stay until my dying breath,
well, i'm breathing death now, will, and it doesn't scare me half as much as your breath used to,
and how does that make you feel? how do you sleep at night knowing that the rush of blood in my own body misses the rush of blood in yours, knowing that the nails that bore into my palms smell like your devotion, that crushingly violent thing which i'll never be free from, knowing that i don't have the guts to dedicate my life to the dirt and grime that is life as a man who'd bleed to death and back for another man, knowing that the shield protecting my heart was never meant for me but for you, knowing that i can't risk it melting in the warmth of your presence? how do you sleep knowing that i never do and it's all because of you, the selfish dreams you drilled into me and the tauntingly loose chains around my wrists? the key's under my tongue because that's where you left it, still warm from your touch at first but achingly cold now, and i think the imprint of it might just kill me one day,
and now i'm breathing once more,
i'm so alive it's hurting me,
but i'll keep on fighting it all until the day death takes me with no feathers left to soften the fall.
