i. there is a halo of sunlight on his golden hair the same color as before the same color as it always was and when he looks at me i know he does not remember who i am who he is who we are ii. there is a lot to be said of grace, he tells me as we walk side by side. like the way you have none of it? i expect him to leave but he looks e at me and he laughs and he says, Patroclus, you never told me you were funny. you are eating the stars whole when you smile, i think, but the words that come out are you could learn more. iii. Hector walks with tar stuck to his feet i can read him with my fingers but he is not the one and he knows it when he leers. the heat of Achilles rests by my side and my fingers clutch the jut of his flesh because i remember and Hector remembers. i can’t let this happen again. iv. he is marked Styx reminds me her bone white fingers curled around a skipping stone. i know. my own fingers are too broad but Achilles tells me how he loves them when our memories collide on rusted mattress springs. you can’t escape this. Styx is skeletal against the setting sun the sound of the river fading into her voice. i never could tell where her waters end and she begins. i’m going to try. v. your hair never lies flat here Achilles says and his hand brushes away the curls falling into my eyes. but i love it. his eyes flicker up towards mine and there are stars trapped within. what else do you love? and he is smiling at my question. this, and this, and this, he murmurs with his hands searing my flesh until we are pouring the skies of our skin into each other. vi. Patroclus, what have you done? Odysseus is blind in only the way that doesn’t matter. i did what i had to do. he shimmers before me ethereal in my dreams and i wake in a cold sweat, Achilles’s hands running along my bare chest until i fall back into dreamless sleep. vii. the headline next day reads HECTOR SLAIN. Achilles looks at me and between our gaze the world pours itself out, an ocean of memory drying before it reaches him. such a shame he sighs and i don’t speak at all.
the greatest grief, hkb (via harperkyle)
