His gaze lingers along the lines of my body, long enough to strike a match to the lighter fluid flowing in my veins. I ignite.
I love you, Ella.′ I whisper. ‘I will love you for the rest of my life. My heart’s yours. Please don’t ever give it back to me.
My throat is a reptile, covered in scales.
He still has the most unusually blue eyes I’ve ever seen. Dark and deep and drenched in passion. I always wondered what it’d be like to see the world through such a beautiful lens. I wondered if your eye color meant you saw the world differently.
Now, I’ll be on my way, thank you very much. It was awful talking to you.
I fill my lungs with the feeling; I step into the slight breeze and clutch a fistful of wind as it weaves its way through my fingers.
I don’t think you’re crazy,” I say. “And I don’t think you’re a psychopath. I don’t think you’re a heartless murderer. I don’t care what anyone else says about you. I think you’re a good person.
Unfold your heart. Sharpen your ears. And never say no to the world when it asks you to dance.
We’re so good at masking our hunger until the knocks at the door cripple our dignity.
My eyes close in a subconscious effort to block out the bad memories, but the effort backfires. Protests. Rallies. Screams for survival. I see women and children starving to death, homes destroyed and buried in rubble, the countryside a burnt landscape, its only fruit the rotting flesh of casualties. I see dead dead dead red and burgundy and maroon and the richest shade of your mother’s favorite lipstick all smeared into the earth. So much everything all the things dead.
Because I was an idiot for thinking things could be different. For thinking you were a fluke. For thinking my life could ever be better than it was, that I could ever be better than I was.
It’s hot rain and humid days and broken thermostats. It’s screaming tea kettles and raging steam engines and wanting to take your clothes off just to feel a breeze.
Alice had a heart of silk and a spine of steel;.
He destroyed her dress the night before our wedding. Like a monster. I’m going to murder him.
I have no idea what to expect I have no idea what my life will be like in this new place and I’m being nailed in the stomach by every exquisite embellishment, every lavish accessory, every superfluous painting, molding, lighting, coloring of this building. I hope the whole thing catches fire.
Your suit looks just like mine.” Kenji frowns. “I’m supposed to be the one with the black suit. Why can’t you have a pink suit? Or a yellow suit – ” “Because we’re not the freaking Power Rangers,” Winston says, rolling his eyes.
If time stands still nothing can go wrong.
I see women and children starving to death, homes destroyed and buried in rubble, the countryside a burnt landscape, its only fruit the rotting flesh of casualties. I see dead dead dead red and burgundy and maroon and the richest shade of your mother’s favorite lipstick all smeared into the earth.
So I lie here, marinating in a sorrow I can never speak of, while regret consumes my heart.
I’m suspended in the moment. I blink and bottle my breaths.