1It's Okay
Date: Thursday 9th October, 2008
Summary: I reach out a hand to tell you that it's okay but then I stop.
soundtrack: you're not sorry - taylor swift (don't ask why, i have no clue. the tune just seemed to fit.)
The silence crashes around my ears and presses down on me, the feeling asphyxiating the breath in my throat. I can do nothing but watch through jaded eyes, shards of emerald piercing into your hunched figure. I watch you as you do the same thing, time and time again. I watch us as this scene continues to repeat itself, time and time again.
Like before, my back is ramrod straight against the chair back and my knees are pressed tightly together as I automatically feel the familiar experience of a mask forcing its way onto my face. The sensation of withdrawing back into my protective bubble is taking over me.
My hands are folded in my lap, delicate digits interlocking and then pulling apart. I have woven my fingers together so tightly I can no longer recognize what belongs to my left hand and what belongs to my right. My lips are pressed tightly together, my teeth firmly biting the inside of my lower lip to stop me from speaking out. The feeling of sharp teeth as they made their depressions, the bite nearly breaking the skin, nearly made me wince.
A fly is buzzing somewhere. It's irritating and I want to bat it away. But I don't. I continue weaving my bony fingers together in painful shapes. Then I shift in my seat, the cushion of the chair dipping to accommodate my weight and to shape the curve of my butt. The silence that reigns is thick, choking like a cord wrapped tightly around our necks.
I shatter at the first sob, a broken sob that wrenches pain out of your heart and pours it into mine. The convulsions rock your body as you attempt to breathe in between the tears that stream down your pale cheeks, the choked cries that you release. It's like music to my ears, art to my eyes. You're a walking caricature and I ache to illustrate your beauty even though I know that no matter how hard I try, nothing could ever justify your exquisiteness. Not a photo, not a painted canvas, not even in my dreams.
Your body is crippled over with your arms clasped around your middle as the convulsions become even more violent. They rock your body to the core and they splinter the fragile glass foundations of your blood-pumping organ - the source of your emotional life, your Achilles heel. Your beautiful body is cloaked. It is hidden under thick fabrics and conceals the secrets I long to touch and erase, those artistic splotches painted in pretty purples, blues, greens, yellows…you are a rainbow and I, I am the child who futilely searches for your end, your beginning.
"Just say something." I hear your broken whisper, your voice is cracking. It's perfect. "Say something, anything. Please." You plead, you beg of me. You want me to say something, to fill the gap that stretches out between us, each passing second allowing that reticent gap to grow. I wonder how big it will grow before it engulfs us and crushes our delicate eardrums. "Please." Your voice is hoarse, it's rough and I'm reminded of those days, those days when you used to lean over and whisper into my ear a thousand secrets, a thousand informalities. Your breath was hot against the shell of my ear, your lips close and sending pleasant shivers up and down my spine. I say nothing. The 'please' hangs in the air, all the desperation in that one word being squeezed out into the atmosphere like water wrung from a sponge. You don't look at me. Beg, plead, you still don't look at me.
I want to see those eyes. I remember how you used to hide the secrets they betrayed behind geeky glasses with black frames and huge lenses, stupid glasses I wanted to pull off your beautiful face and smash them on the ground…if only to see the truth. I want to know if you're still going to hide behind those glasses, just like you're hiding behind that swathe of heavy fabrics. I see that infamous black cloak, drawn across your body like a curtain drawn across the finale of your tragic theatricals. You still wear that. I still want to smash your glasses.
"For goodness sake, please! Say something, anything!" you scream at me, the skin lining the inside of your throat tearing and revealing the rawness of your pain. Slowly, you lift your head up, your eyes staggering and sending shivers through my being. I can't take your pain, it frustrates me so much. I clench my hands tighter, feeling my fingernails digging into soft flesh and scratching at the whorls and lines that decorate my palm in the most human way. I lick my lips and notice that my bite has broken my lip and I can taste the blood. It's bitter yet so sweet. I want to taste your pain, is it as bittersweet as mine? I can feel my pulse jumping in my wrist, in my neck. I feel so fragmented, disjointed, lost and it's your fault.
Still, like all those times before, I reach out a hand. I reach out a hand just like I've done in the past, I stretch the tendons in my arm, my hand which had been before clenched in my lap now splayed open to offer you a chance to get up, for you to climb the steps back up to the top, to the highest point in the world. I see the white crescents that mar my palm. I reach out a hand to tell you that it's okay but then I stop. I stand up and in that moment, I see you slipping out of my grasp. Your desperate last attempt to grab at the safety I offer you, that will help to drag you out of the black abyss, your fingers have missed mine by a mere millimetre and now you're falling faster than before. And all I can do is watch.
"Get up." My voice is quiet, demanding and I hate it. It's every bit as painful as your falling figure. You get up without a word and I find myself staring into your beautiful honey-amber eyes. I find myself staring and I'm trapped again in the wonder. How can such warm eyes be so cold? I lift a steady hand to your face and I trace the delicate curve of your cheek all the way down your neck where I stop, fingers lightly pressed against a frenzied pulse. Then I drop my hand. Your expression is full of so much pain, so much sorrow…you're so broken and beautiful and it hurts so much. I don't know if I can bear the agony but I force myself to continue gazing at your beautiful eyes still covered by those stupid glasses.
I reach my hand up again and I take off your glasses, letting it fall to back to my side as my fingers gently grasp the frame. And in that moment, I see everything so clearly. I see the honey-amber eyes covered in a thin sheen of tears which continue to track their way down your cheeks. I see the tearstains and I feel a bruise forming on my heart. I see the discoloration that marks your face and I feel a cut in my heart. I watch your slightly parted lips, plump, pale pink twin pillows which whispers of breath stagger through into the air where they float around and land on my lips. A pain of all those ghostly kisses I will never receive. And I feel my heart slowly crack. I want to do the same to you so I release your glasses from my grasp, the sound of the glass cracking and echoing in the silence. It's loud and the tension thickens as you flinch, eyes blinking and spilling more tears.
Then I step forward and I kiss you. It's bitter, your tears mixing with my blood. It's sweet, your soft lips compliant under my own. It's everything I've dreamed of and so much more. And maybe when this is over it'll hurt more than ever before but then, at least I know that whilst I didn't have a chance, I still did claim your lips, made them mine for a few seconds which will last for eternity in my eyes. I lick your bottom lip and you open our mouth and it's everything. It's your pain, it's my revenge. It's the rain and the sun, the summer and the winter. It's the feeling of death and the feeling of life. It's not a beginning but it's an end.
I release you and you still look so goddamn beautiful I want to scream and shatter the image. Your lips are slightly swollen and your eyes are half-closed in ecstasy or maybe in pain. You blur in front of me and it's then I realize the moisture sliding down my cheeks, the tears in my eyes. You open your mouth to say something but I stop you. I reach out a hand to tell you that it's okay but then I stop.
"You're breaking my heart."
you really are.
note: unsure of rating/genre. let me know if you think it needs to be changed please, thanks.