Entwined

He sits alone, beautiful and still. He is the descending silence of night.

He is deeper than the ink black ocean, more perfect than the star-filled sky.

Though the world is so close around him, he is shielded from it by a shadow of darkness. A protective haze through which everything is dull and muted. Just a warm whisper of a breeze which can easily be ignored. I wonder what pushed him from the real world and made him seek refuge here. I shudder as my mind flicks back through the events that drove me here. His story can't be a happy one.

I watch him from where I stand. Alone in my own dark haze, only vaguely aware of the normal world moving around me. A world of obscene colours and too-loud noise that no one else seems to mind.

As I watch him I grow fond of his rare smiles, of the ring in his lip, and of the red in the bottom of his midnight hair.

I want to reach out and touch him, to make him notice me standing here. He is too far away. Loneliness has not yet driven him to search for others who might be hidden here beside him in the shadows. He is so near and yet so impossibly out of reach.

Longing fills my heart. I want to be with him. To share this shadow world. We could hide away in it where no one would ever find us. The world would carry on and time would move us forward, but we wouldn't even notice. If we shared our darkness, we would never have need of anything else.

I call out to him, needing him to hear me, to look up, to see me, to reach out for me too.
Screaming out my hearts desires, I am unheard across the gulf of uncertainty.

I push back against my darkness, and rejoin the normal world of light. Maybe if I seek him from here, he will see me. My movements catch his eye but he shies away, only ever expecting the outside world to offer him pain.

The normal world is pressing in on me, forcing me to curl in on myself. I walk, hunched against the onslaught like a beggar against the freezing wind. After so long hidden in my protective world of shadows, the colours are more glaring than I remember. The noise is nearly deafening. I can't take it any more. My senses are overwhelmed and I can't focus enough to rebuild the many layers of shadow that I usually to hide behind. However, I can see the slight shimmer that separates him from this world. Desperate for protection, and for him, I hold my breath and I step into his shadow world.

In a crash of searing clarity, our worlds combine.

The haze that protected us from the normal world remains, but it no longer shields us from each other. Every moment of agony, sorrow, shame and defeat is laid bare. I see the scars on his soul. I see the matching scars he has drawn on his body, and he sees mine.

We are so close now.
I look away from his scars and haunting memories, and I see him clearly for the first time. At last he sees me too. The deepest eyes ensnare my soul. Ice blue, a discreet smile.

Our suffering unites us. Condemned by emotion but released by pain, we are entwined.

The idea of me

I sit up as I hear you walking down the hall. Peeking through the crack in the door, you see that I'm awake and gently push your shoulder into the door so that it swings open wide.

You smile impishly at me, "Good to see you're finally awake. Happy Birthday beautiful."

The wonderful aroma of coffee and pancakes fills the air as you set the tray down on my lap. 

I thank you quietly and realise that we are both somewhat embarrassed by this uncharacteristic gesture of affection. I can't even remember the last time that you made me breakfast, let alone served it to me like this. 

Leaning down you kiss my forehead and force yourself into the small space between me and the edge of the bed. You help yourself to some of my coffee and then shoot me my favourite cheeky grin. The awkwardness fades now that we are pressed together so closely in this bed.

What does that say about us? That we are more comfortable pressed against one another in bed, than with small gestures of love and affection? What does that say of our marriage?

You nudge me in the ribs and I realise that you are waiting for me to eat. I get so lost in my head sometimes.

The pancakes are pretty bad. The product of your love of eating out with friends and my hatred of the kitchen. Not wanting to hurt your feelings I wash them down with coffee and shoot you what I hope is a pleased and grateful smile.

While I eat we chat about the dinner party that we went to last night, how we had a much better time once we got home and into bed together, and our plans for my birthday which largely consisted of more time in bed together. 

You help me finish the last pancake, a gesture for which I am infinitely grateful. I don't think I can choke down another bite.

Your next move surprises me. I am expecting you to put the tray on the floor and then kiss me back down onto the bed. Instead you hand me a card. 

In it you wish me a happy birthday, of course, and go on a beautiful and emotional rant about how much you love me, how wonderful I am, how kind, happy, strong, and giving. How you are so excited for the next chapter of our lives together. A home of our own with a yard that our kids can play in, a dog and a swing-set and neighbours and friends. 

The words begin to get fuzzy on the page and I realise that I am holding my breath. I haven't even noticed that you are kissing your way down my neck and across my shoulder. 

 The future you have planned is nothing like the one in my head where we grow old together, just the two of us, entwined in this bed. The woman you have described doesn't feel like me either. I'm not kind or strong or beautiful. I am a mess of a girl, cracked and barely holding it together. Needing to feel your body on mine so that I can feel anything at all.

Is this really how you see me? All virtue and goodness? Do you know me at all? Or are you just in love with the idea of me? I have masqueraded as this woman you describe for all the world for all my life, but I thought you knew better. I thought you looked deeper and saw the real me. If this is who you think you are in love with, then you certainly aren't in love with me. How could you be so stupid? Did you think I was playing when I said that I hate children? Or when I said that you and me in this bed was all that I would ever need? 

I wonder if this is all a joke and pull your face to mine. I look into your eyes for the wicked humour that will give you away. I look as deep as I can and finally I see something, a warm fuzzy glow. It's nothing that I have ever noticed before. I think it's love. Not the shallow depraved love that I have always seen, always needed, but something soft and tender. 

I gasp and thinking that it is a sound of pleasure, you cover my mouth with yours. You kiss me deeply, and I realise that instead of passionate anger and force, this kiss full of all the love that you could never say out loud. 

Horror overtakes me as I realise that I'm just as stupid as you are. All these years I have looked into your eyes and seen what I wanted to see. I have touched your body and felt only what I needed to feel. I'm not in love with you either. Just the idea of you. 

Sometimes I like to think that I can draw

Ashes

Innocence taken away.
A shadow of agony as memories bleed.
Once we tasted heaven,
wide-eyed and hand in hand,
but my love has perished.
In a sickening vision of darkness –
love is followed by death, death followed by blood,
A life burnt to ashes in a haze of sorrow,
I still miss you.

Your Sunlight and my Shadow Heart

I'm sitting cross legged on the floor in the middle of my life. Broken dreams surround me, beautiful and fragile as dragonfly wings. Empty promises hang in the air, floating clear and shiny. Soap bubbles of good intentions and insincere smiles, ready to burst and disappear in a rain of tears at the slightest pressure.

In my hands are the pieces that I have left. The mangled remains of a broken heart that I cannot yet discard. He broke it and crushed it. Tore it to pieces. But I have hope of fixing it still. This hope is all I have. It lights up this life of mine with a glow and a shimmer. It dulls the glare from the broken things shattered all around me. All I can see is the light, the glowing promises, and the little pieces in my hands.

I don't know how to fix this heart. I can hold the pieces together. Force them to resume their proper shape, but they just fall apart again the second I release them from my shaking hands. I can't go on like this forever, I can't always be holding myself together, eternally on the brink of losing it all.

Just as my hope begins to fade, and the light in my room falters, a movement catches my eye. I look up and there you are, standing in a shaft of golden dancing sunlight. You take me into your arms, engulf me with you smile. You cradle my heart in your hands, and entwine me in your love. I feel safe knowing that you will never let me fall apart.

The floor has fallen away. The broken dragonfly wings of my past don't matter any more. We are floating in a new world of love and light and laughter.

An eternity passes like this, or maybe it's only a few seconds. It's hard to know. Time means so little here in your arms. This life with you consumes me.

In this new bliss I forget the broken wreck that I used to be. The days and years before I met you recede into the murky corners of my mind. They crouch there waiting to claim me again, but kept at bay by your blinding light.

One instant we are like this, entwined in purest happiness, drifting ever higher, the next instant, you are torn from my arms. A cruel twist of fate darkens your eyes and kills your light. I reach for you but I'm falling. Screaming into the darkness as the floor rushes up to meet me.

I can feel my heart breaking again, feel myself falling apart at the seams. There is nothing left to hold me together, no hope to light up the room.

In the dark I don't see it coming, it wouldn't matter if I did. I crash into the floor with all the speed of my breaking heart. The collision should be enough to kill me. I wish it were enough to kill me. Instead I shatter. This time its not just my heart that is breaking. Every part of me is torn apart and crumpled onto the floor. The blackness rushes in on me and for a moment it consumes me. There is nothing left in this world without you. Nothing but the agony radiating from every broken shard of my being.

Then, as my eyes adjust to the gloom, I notice something above me. A faint glow far off in the distance. I recognise it at once, for no one could forget something so beautiful. It is the imprint of you and I together, twirling through the air, all gossamer and golden light. This shadow of happiness is all that I have left.

I lay in the darkness of my life, content to spend whatever I have left gazing longingly at the memory of us.

An eternity passes like this, or maybe it's only a few seconds. It's hard to know. Even now you consume me.

Two side of the same girl.

Sacrifices

Theory walked swiftly along the cold, empty street.
The darkness pressed in on all sides, but he didn't mind. Darkness would make this easier. He didn't want to see her face as he told her the words that would kill her.
His steps slowed as he thought of what he was about to do, of the words that he was about to say. There would be no going back after he told her, and now his subconscious was holding him back, dragging against each swing of his legs and filling his feet with lead. Delaying the moment of truth when he would say the words and everything would change for ever.
His stomach was full of uncomfortably squirming snakes of indecision, and apprehension. He had no idea how she would take the news. She might cry. Oh god. What if she cried? That would ruin everything. He couldn't stand to see her cry.
He realised that he had stopped walking altogether. He was standing alone in the cold empty darkness. How easy it would be to just stay here. Lost in the darkness with nothing and no one. He could be himself in the darkness.
But he knew that the sun would rise eventually. It would break through the dark and reality would find him again. There was nothing for it. He would have to carry on, go to her and say the words that would kill her.
Stepping forward into the night once more, he tried to silence the voice in his head, tried to still the slithering creatures in his stomach.
In the pool of light cast by a lone street light he saw her at last. Her auburn hair shone brightly in the dim light. She was leaning back against the wall of a building, fearfully trying not to look out into the endless black of the night. She looked so small, so fragile. He felt the familiar need to protect her from the world, that had drawn him to her from the start. How could he protect her now that he was the one she needed protection from?
He stepped into her little circle of light in a movement so abrupt that it made her jump. She stood to face him, fear and surprise radiating from her body. Recognising his face she relaxed instantly and a brilliant smile spread across her face, like the sun breaking out from behind a bank of clouds. That smile said it all. It spoke of friendship, love, trust and the purest kind of happiness. It was a smile that broke his heart.
Without further hesitation she threw her arms around him and he knew that he could never say the words that would kill her. He would let them rot away inside his mind and fill his heart with darkness.
He kissed her mouth gently, apologising for all the things that he had been about to say.
He took her hand in his and together they walked out into the night, the diamond on her finger glittering softly in the intermittent street lights.

Follower

No one knows what lies beneath the shadows, not even the darkest soul.
He has gone at last into oblivion, where no one can see his crimson tears and hear his endless scream.
I want to vanish away with him.
I wish to dance in the abyss and be an eternal shadow.
With these bloody hands I'll end my life and stand beside him once again.
I have nothing left and so I shall go. I'll catch his tears. I'll listen to him screaming, and ill tell him one last time.
That which I wanted to tell him, before he left this world.
I love him.

Freedom

I stared blankly at the crumpled pile on the floor, not really recognising that once it had been a girl. Her blonde hair splayed gently out behind her like a halo, soft curls framing her beautiful face. She looked so angelic, the sunlight lit fire to the golden locks, although some of it was now dank and matted with blood.
Her mouth hung slightly open, relaxed as though she was merely asleep. Her wide staring eyes told another story, and I knew that she was dead.
I had finally fulfilled my wildest dreams.

My gaze was dragged from her crumpled, broken body to the fireplace behind her. Made of solid old bricks, worn smooth by centuries of use. The mouldy carpet leading up to the hearth had been singed by embers flung from the leaping, dancing flames from some distant past.
I loved that fire place like I loved no other part of this house. The rest was silent and cold, filled with malice. Silent ever-watching malice.
I liked to think of my old self as being like that fireplace; ornate, beautiful, strong and resilient against the decay and destruction of time.

My eyes moved to rest on the ornate mantle piece; unblemished, carved mahogany.
The post card still rested against the tarnished mirror on the mantle. The only reminder of my past. The image on the front showed a beautiful open field, protected from the world by a huge stone wall, broken only by an ornate iron gate. A small path meandered through the field of waist high grass and wild flowers, towards purple-hued mountains.
I dragged myself from my place on the floor beside the girl and drifted across the room. I picked up the card and turned it over in my hands.
There were just two words scrawled across the back. "Remember this?". Such a simple question from one I knew so long ago.
"Of course I remember, how could I forget?" I whispered out loud, wondering if he would hear me, and if it would satisfy him to know that I still though of him every day.

***

He held my hand so firmly as we wandered together. The gate lay open before us, with a path stretching into the distance.
"I love it here," he told me quietly. "The endless open planes and the road that stretches forever, I feel like this is my life laid out before my very eyes."
My spirit soared with the beauty of the place. He was right, he always was.
Trees lining the road were like friends. Guiding us down the road together, ensuring we did not stray from our path.
I jumped with surprise as the gate swung shut behind us. I was alarmed momentarily at the thought of only having one direction to go, not being able to turn back. But his persistent hands led on, they always did. He was the leader, and I would always follow.
The mountains loomed ahead of us. Great hulking masses blocking out the northern sky, darkened by the clouds that had rolled in from the west.
My heart filled with foreboding as the thunder tore through the heavens.
Unshaken, he pulled me on.

The trees grew taller, interlocking above the track. They blocked out the sky and made my world darker still.
"The place feels so familiar, but so unwelcoming," I whispered, trying to find reason for my growing dread.
The path rose and feel gently over the foothills beneath the mountains. It was then that I noticed the silence. Jay had not spoken to me in hours. Silence has shrouded our meandering journey into this place.
Roughly he pulled me to face him. His eyes shone like diamonds. Ice blue and yet fire hot. Passion burned within his heart. Contorting his face with animal lust. I had seen this face before, not in memory, but in my dreams. This road too, it was all the same. Terror gripped my heart and took hold of my body. I knew his intentions. He had always wanted more from me, but respected that I was not ready. Now that had changed, his gracious acceptance had merely covered his bitter resentment, and now he would take what he thought was his. I knew he would. He had done so in my dream, and left me beaten and broken at the end of the road.
I nearly jumped from my skin the the thunder roared in anger. But as it rose its voice again, I roared with it. The blows rained from my fists, my legs and my knees. All working to find some vulnerable place on his body. He fell to the ground, shocked by my resistance. He kicked out at my feet and I fell backwards into the soft decaying leaf litter. He advanced towards me, towering as high as the mountains, a cold laugh barely audible above the storm raging on above us. I lay there, searching knowing he would be upon my in a second.
My hand found solidity, a rock buried in the leaves. I lunged at him, hurling the rock at him with all my might, all my will to live. A sickening crack was my just reward.
He fell back twitching and then just lay there, staring, broken. His sky blue eyes were glazed and overcast. I knew he was gone. In terror I ran from that place, onwards down the road, deeper into the mountain. I knew I could not go back, the gate was shut, my past was lost.

Those ice blue eyes haunted me as I ran, and as the rain began to fall, so did I. Exhaustion took over. My legs were aching, and my breathing was ragged and sharp, but my eyes were dry. That man, that monster, would never get my tears.
I barely noticed the pain, but I noticed the blood. The place I had fallen was littered with scraps of metal, one piece sharp enough to have cut into my hand. The sight awoke me to the pain, to the cold of the rain seeping through my skin and into the deepest parts of my soul.
Needing to find shelter, I got up and blindly I began to walk through the rain, blood still dripping from my fingers.

***

That day changed my life, it brought me here to this old decrepit house where I had lived since, twisted and broken, just like Jay. I had lived in this house for 7 years since that day. Seven years, alone.
I did not hate myself for what I did, nor did I regret it. But it had left me as a hollow and empty shell of the girl that I used to be. The cold that had leaked into my heart on that fateful day had never left me. It was now my only companion as I passed my time in this desolate house, walking in silence from room to room, waiting for death to find me.

It had been a few days ago that the post card had appeared on the mantle. At first I couldn't believe it. How could he still be alive? Had I not seen his blood stain the ground and his eyes staring without sight?
I knew that he was dead, but since the day the postcard arrived, I had felt eyes upon me.

Coming back to myself, shivering against the mantle piece with only a dead girl for company, I release Jay from my memory and the card from my fingers. As I dropped the card I watched it's slow flutter to the air. As it fell it started to fade and before it could reach the ground it dissolved into nothing.
Looking in up in horror, I didn't really know what to expect. But I was greeted only by the same old house, the same beautiful girl still laying broken on the floor.

Kneeling down beside her I saw thick silver scars encircled her slim arms in the soft blue moonlight. Welts and ridges of pain, criss crossing her skin in the dance of purest sorrow, so similar to mine. I looked deep into her eyes for the first time and wept at the sight.
My own eyes looked back at me.
Understanding burnt the tears down my cheeks. That was me laying broken on the floor, my physical self at least. I had finally done what I had wanted to do for so long. The cold had overtaken me at last.

***

The gates opened silently before me, the path stretching on forever, and lines of trees guiding me on to the end. My end. The one I had waited so long for.

At last I would be free....