too often, in the small glow of the stove light, you find yourself praying to a rotting altar: you never were religious, even in youth it seemed stupid to believe in such a thing as a man in the sky, preoccupied with the mundane reality of learning to ride a bike, patching up skinned knees from when it wasn’t so easy to find your balance in the complexities of the unknown. at the end of the world, it was hope that was missing. hope that whatever/whoever comes after you is better than you have been; that the cool jade of your attitude could be dissolved into a brighter future. there is no turning back from the monster you have become; you step over cracked memories beneath flickering fluorescents hand-in-hand with your younger self [truth and fiction a blurred line. you were never her, she would never become you] and still you pretend that you can make amends. you could have killed her, she begged you to pull the trigger in the eye of a storm. was she already your mirror, or could you still fix your mistakes?
〘 ▫ ✉️ ─ @tellt4le: she'd do what you taught her, she'd meet the same cruel fate. 〙
“that’s not true.” you bite, and it wasn’t fair. your actions often lacked intention, you act before you could think only to be left wading in a swimming pool of regret. eyes ache with the weight of unshed tears; you were not that girl anymore, hardened where you once were soft in nature, too forgiving and too naive to ever make it in the changed world. let yourself be painted as the villain, burdened with actions that no one else should have to take. [accustomed now to the bloodshed, how easy it was to take a mans life did not weigh on your chest like it should; guilt nonexistent. do or die, it is no way to live] knuckles turn white, had nails not already been bitten down to the quick, you were sure they would have drawn blood. eyes cast over his shoulder to land on charlie, so young but so bruised; drawn into the community like it’s natural for her, like she did not have to constantly look over her shoulder awaiting the proverbial stab in the back.
“you don’t know me, or her. she’s different. she doesn’t have to make the same mistakes i did.” you wouldn’t let her.