[ Reaper76 Week Day One: “War buddies” war/battles ]
As my lungs remember how air tastes like,
like fire and life,
like pain and victory,
I lay wide awake,
covered in sweat,
trembling.
The pain is so sudden
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Are you safe when I can’t reach you, when my eyes cannot follow as they slip shut and all around me it’s just darkness?
I can hear your ragged breath,
as vicious death is pumped through your veins,
needles piercing,
laughing,
desecrating the tender flesh that I oh so tenderly will try to mend.
It’s painful to only be able to listen, my senses piercingly acute seconds before the poisonous mixture will strike.
My nails are scratching,
digging new holes inside the armrest,
frantic as my heart pounds faster,
my breaths erratic,
my skin feverish
covered in cold sweats that does nothing but dampening my clothes,
trapping me in a cage made of cheap white cotton.
And I can feel, even more than I can hear, your teeth screeching as your jaw clenches, refusing to give in.
Ever the soldier, my dear.
You would deny to the entire world the chance to hear your suffering.
But not to me,
never to me.
Goosebumps rise under my skin,
like ants of pure lava trying to crawl their way back in,
changing,
hissing,
like ill-willed snakes ready to sink their fangs into my core.
It’s hard to breathe.
It’s a constant battle against a powerful spell that tries to throw my body and mind into a painful slumber.
It’s hard to breathe,
but it’s harder to let myself slip away into oblivion,
knowing I would leave you alone.
We promised to face everything together, remember my dear?
And I’m with you, till the end of the line,
till the end of times.
One would think that after all these months,
after all this pain,
the ache of the body would have ceased.
That the system would have got accustomed to being torn apart from the inside and out,
letting our numb mind register just a dull ache.
But Nature is a goddess
a loving, caring, but unforgiving one.
She gives life,
her every work is a piece of art,
perfect in its whole,
flawed
yet unique.
And it’s not a human’s place to alter her work.
So, we pay.
Back arching against solid restraints,
heels digging,
legs unable to spasmodically kick the air in a dance of madness driven pain.
Our mouths are eventually sealed by cloth.
They don’t want for their precious experiments to harm themselves.
We are nothing but walking sacks of money,
our lives are expensive.
They can prevent our bodies to move but oh,
they can’t prevent our souls to scream.
Nor can they stop our own blood to become lava,
destroying everything in its path.
Or put an end to our organs feeding on themselves,
expanding,
cramping,
shattering as our bones splinter and pierce their flesh like fuming hot glass.
But Nature is an unforgiving goddess.
Not everyone dies,
that would be a much too sweet reward.
Some of us were born stronger,
she made us better for a purpose that we’ll never find out.
Not after our choices.
And so our gift will be our eternal punishment.
We were fools to challenge a goddess like Prometheus once did.
And just like him we are bound to an eternal suffering.
The blood will cease to destroy, but not to burn.
The poison will still mingle within our lungs,
settling in like dust from an old bookcase.
It will still stain our brains,
caressing them with mischievous fingernails,
drawing toxic patterns for future nightmares to linger at the corner of our eyes.
We dared to steal the fire and our body became our vulture,
devouring us from within.
And just like Prometheus we will revive,
just to suffer one day more.
It comes a moment, during the process, when everything stops.
No fire, no snakes, nor a single aching bones.
Everything stays,
still and silent.
One could even doubt that our minds are still enveloped in the darkness of the experiment.
One could even doubt that we are really feeling anything at all.
Everything stays,
in the afterglow of a war we fight on our own
and we might as well be lost in the nothingness of death.
Is this it, my dear?
Is this the last fleeting moment gifted to me to think about you?
About your blinding smile, too shy for the cameras;
your piercing eyes, watering each time they spot a sore wound on my body;
your gentle touch on my cheeks as your fingers wipe off my tears?
But there’s a knot in my throat,
it makes it hard to breathe.
Breathe…
As my lungs remember how air tastes like,
like fire and life,
like pain and victory,
I lay wide awake,
covered in sweat,
trembling.
The pain is so sudden,
the memory of how a consumed, aching body feels like is too much to take,
almost knocks me back down into oblivion.
But I could recognize you by touch alone, by smell.
I would know you blind, by the way your breaths came.
And that gives me strength.
The haze is slowly fading,
letting my soul free to breathe again at the sight of you standing in front of me,
hands cupping my pale cheeks painted with the constellations that you’ve always loved to kiss oh so sweetly.
And I’m born again
inside your eyes.
