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Even though he's been carrying and handling guns for years now, his hands are still trembling. So I obviously hit the bastard for him.
He's alike but different from me. He's seen it all. He has seen those who taught him love explode right before his eyes. He's known more than love; he's known hatred and revenge. Still, he's lived his life knowing he, at some point, had been wanted by those around him. Knowing he is still wanted; alive (by his parents, by Chika-chan, by that Taniguchi, by my sister,)
Different from me.
Similar. Always burning with something, always a second away to be consumed by his own rage, by the deep darkness dwelling in his heart, body and soul. Maybe that's why this could work and I reach out my hand towards him to let him know.
His hands shake, his body trembles and he will never forget nor forgive. He will always be a moment away to start a fire, burning everything he touches.
For a start, I give him my hands and my heart. He holds them as sacred and being immortal must be this feeling.
Everything is burning, where he touches it catches fire. My hands are burnt, I'm aching. It feels suffocating and there's smoke everywhere,smoke that gets to my head and makes me dizzy but he's so deep in thought his dark eyebrows are furrowed to the point of barely avoiding touching each other and his eyes are so gentle and confused and hurt, it makes me feel disgusted by how my burns don't ache at all. Not in the way I would want them to.
I wish you weren't burning, I want to say.
I wish you'd keep touching me forever. Which is the same as
Let me burn alone.
His gaze pierces mine but before he can do all the things he's been dying to, I move away, the fire out of control and my burns more severe than I expected. I'm used to hurt, inflicting it upon myself or letting others do it for me and he's not a monster but right now he's everything I can't bear to look at. What's the same, he's everything I wish I could have and will kill to keep safe.
Repeat to yourself
“I won’t leave you, I won’t leave you”
until you fall asleep and dream of the place
where nothing is red.
When is a monster not a monster?
Oh, when you love it.
//
Start by pulling him out of the fire and
hoping that he will forget the smell.
He was supposed to be an angel but they took him
from that light and turned him into something hungry,
something that forgets what his hands are for when they
aren’t shaking.
He will lose so much, and you will watch it all happen
because you had him first, and you would let the world
break its own neck if it means keeping him.
Start by wiping the blood off of his chin and
pretending to understand.
Repeat to yourself
“I won’t leave you, I won’t leave you”
until you fall asleep and dream of the place
where nothing is red.
When is a monster not a monster?
Oh, when you love it.
Oh, when you used to sing it to sleep.
Here are your upturned hands.
Give them to him and watch how he prays
like he is learning his first words.
Start by pulling him out of another fire,
and putting him back together with the pieces
you find on the floor.
There is so much to forgive, but you do not
know how to forget.
When is a monster not a monster?
Oh, when you are the reason it has become so mangled.
Here is your humble offering,
obliterated and broken in the mouth
of this abandoned church.
He has come back to stop the world
from turning itself inside out, and you love him, you do,
so you won’t let him.
Tell him that you will never know any better.
Pretend to understand why that isn’t good enough.
– “Start Here” by Caitlyn Siehl