Thursday, October 17, 2013

The Other Me

You make the call, I'll show my cards. I'll let them fall over both of us like giant snowflakes, licking the soft air in their descent. We will cock our necks and twist our minds and dance around each other, courting trust.

I am soaked in blood on the inside. Filled up with it. I let it out in small, controlled pulses. Thin rivers that run down the arm, slowing time. I watch the slithering blood and smile, feeling peace. You want to know the serenity that I feel, but it is not available to all. You have to pay your dues.

My arms and legs, fingers: foreign things. They do not feel a part of me. Like someone switched them in the night. Replaced my arms with these dead things that hang as if weighted. My fingers are frostbitten, blackening; I am waiting for them to fall off.

You were not there when I needed you. And you held your attentions (or lack thereof) above my head like a cursing cousin. I jumped, and you always pulled just out of reach, laughing at my futile attempts.

We were something, weren't we? Before the decay. Before the disease. We were spritely, playful. We did not buy into the system because we did not understand it. We still don't. I do understand that thumbing my nose at it was not a good idea. Or, perhaps it was the perfect idea, and you pay for perfection.

We pay in sweat and fear and twisted guts and end-of-day sighs that escape when we lay down our heads. Did that sound just come from me? It is a frightening prospect because we never wanted to be the kind of people who made those soft, sad sighs.

I say we, but I mean me, of course. Me and the other me.

9 comments:

  1. Just tweeted this. Love it. It scares me, which is good.

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    Replies
    1. Long as you're okay, though—some of that a-scairt feeling is for you, bro!

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    2. Oh, yeah, I'm cool. Thanks brother. Everything I write is fiction, you know that. ;)
      If I wasn't OK, you would be one of the first to know, believe me.

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  2. This feels very close to home. You do have a knack for finding those nerves. Well done.

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