OPEN WOUNDS

BLOODIED  FOOT  STEPPING  ON  SPLICED  GLASS  and  making  it  look  like  feathered  down.  smiles  that  stitch  planets  back  together  and  paint  over  broken  homes  until  they’re  beautiful  again.  labored  breaths  that  whisper  gentle  sighs,  hanging  up  masks  in  the  closet.  these  are  the  things  sean  is  made  of.  grasping  tightly  to  splintered  relationships,  overlooking  expiration  dates  and  sour  longings.  brushing  his  palm  on  flick’s  thigh  he  tries  to  listen  only  to  the  sound  of  her  voice  and  not  the  mourning  her  words  carry.  another  body  trying  to  send  itself  to  his  grave,  and  he  smiles  through  the  thought   -   smiles  still  at  her.  a  prize  he’s  won  over  and  over  again,  but  the  danger  in  sean  is  that  it  will  never  be  enough  to  satisfy  the  starving  at  the  pit  of  him.   “how  am  i  supposed  to  look  at  you,  then?”   he’s  smug  and  satisfied  but  still  he  stretches  forward,  feline  in  the  way  he  lets  himself  curl  at  her  splayed  feet.   “ you  didn’t  like  it ? ”   and  the  real  concern  that  reddens  his  cheeks  is  all  that  betrays  his  tired  composure,  contagious  smile  wavering  a  blink.   “you  don’t  like  me?”   but  this  is  a  tease,  a  cat  toying  with  the  befallen  mouse,  because  as  he  wraps  his  arms  around  her  legs  she’s  still  warm  and  breathing  and  sitting  in  his  bed  when  she  could  have  left  instead.  her  presence  always  feels  like  a  victory   -   the  only  shame  that  he’s  at  war  with  his  own  sister  and  flick  feels  uncomfortably  like  a  casualty.   “i  don’t  regret  it.  never  do.”   how  little  it  says  when  sean  finds  love  in  cold  places,  in  leavings  and  drownings  and  overconsumption.   “you  let  guilt  in  one  time  and  it’ll  eat  you  all  up.  look  at  my  dad.”   the  way  patrick  marooned  himself  out  of  a  family,  haunts  the  perimeter  of  town  like  a  vagrant.  a  mirror  sean  wishes  he  could  shatter  and  let  bleed. 

                                                   ·  * .

“i don’t know, like i’m,-” it begins. this horrid culmination of wasps that nest in her throat : angry. slipping into her chest, swelling her heart ; it aches openly. unstitching beastil wounds. she sits at his table. long and empty, her feet kicked up, her hands bloodied ; it’s always been them. held in this chapel ; digging nails into the meat of thighs, - an altar that she repents only to him. this habit they have of allowing the night to undress them wholly. a secret that is kept between teeth. sloane. her name is a hymn that she had learnt but seeks to forget. and there is still that familiarity that flourishes, - hands twisting against organs ; they kiss the same. “shut the fuck up, sean.” tease the same as well, and it spreads against blush stained cheeks,  delightfully dizzy, - dimpled smile carved out of flesh. she hates him sometimes. haunts him in the pale moonlight, - nails sinking into curls that meet like a crown against his head. does that make her his prize? but she feels more like a slaughtered lamb. devoured. “i don’t regret it.” it bites, head lulling, - needy. “you know i don’t,” though it spills a whisper, this rotten work they have created between them gathering at the foot of the bed. because it’s never just been them. the carcass that follows seeps into the carpet ; caught in the corner of her eyes. look at my dad, but she doesn’t need to, - merely her own reflection that greets guilt like an old friend ; her mother’s love choking her frame, her brother’s axe gaze that cuts deep, sutter’s lips pressed into the base of her neck. and sloane. always sloane. 

there's desperation to be held. her heart, fragile; barely beating within bloodied ribs, carves in the back of her throat. a rotting fever flourishes, igniting flesh, and she looks at him through lidded lashes. sweet sean. a prayer that lathers his darkened room,  - holy water dosed ; communion ridden. it feels cruel.. the way he looks at her ; star clung, breath held. and they are always here, - in the space between them that spreads between fingertips. gathering his shirt, - rolling between bruised finger and thumbs. his room is a haven that does not sit well in the water anymore. all sunken and sodden. it feels like the end. that if she carves her lips into blush ridden cheeks she may chew him whole. sink teeth into that father-sized ache that they both share. “fuck,” and the word slur,  honey pooled with dizziness. this raw wound that she encourages the other to dip into. but she can barely see him among the dark. amongst the moonlight basked in silence that she wants to scream into hideously. “you need to not look at me like that,” and she tugs a pout against swollen petals, hands spreading against her own stomach, - pressing into the grooving of bones that don’t feel like hers anymore. merely a tremor that she bites down on. “seriously,” she begins once more, feet kicking out, - sullen.

HE  WANTS  IT  TO  BE  LOVE  THAT  FOSTERS  unbegotten rage, that tightens in his throat and falls with his stomach  –  but it feels more like a selfish rage. the way a child raised in a house of bones needs flesh to feel whole, the way an inch can feel like miles. it’s blind searching for anything to grasp onto, anything that’s left of the ghost who used to look so much like a prince. he feels his absence at his side like an open wound, one from which the good parts of him are dissolving, melting, rotting.  “it’s not meant to be a chore,”  jamie bites, fangs bared, the wolf who finally shed his wool. the room is spinning, either that or it’s gone red, he can’t find anything to break but the relationship he loves so much, so much that it hurts, so overwhelmed with it that grief looks something like abandonment and apologies sound something like mockery.  “besides, what’s the point? we’re never going exist outside of oxford. i think we both know that.”  and he’s always been so selfish. he’s always been so afraid. biting the hand that feeds him before he can get bit first. but there’s something else, when he shuts his eyes, the immediate regret that stirs.  “i don’t ..”  perhaps he needs more sleep, to keep the paranoia at bay, the nipping on his heels, his past finally catching up to him. perhaps he needs to remind himself that there are more important things than playing house with the person you want but can never have, like sand slipping through calloused hands. that one of them lost their brother, and the other never had one to begin with. how could he ever understand?  “i don’t think that’s quite what i meant. there are more important things than us, is all. that is all.”  it’s true, but why does it hurt so much to prise from phantom lips? why does it taste like decay?

HE HOLDS A FUNERAL IN THE BACK OF HIS TEETH ; a graveyard. trained to kneel before a god. he is always in that room ; dark, knees bloodied, - tear stained features flushed. reciting prayers that hymn in the name of his lover. o jamie, i’m so sorry. i can’t leave this place. i can’t find the door. only his next damnation. he is always alone. even when thorns are pressed into his head & feet nailed. the words of his father chewed, slowly, savouring. you understand what this means, son? only he doesn’t. he understands an empty place left at the dinner table, a locked room, and laughter trapped in the walls of his family home. that ghosting. the impossible to grasp. what his father means to say is that he is next, the line of succession weighted in an golden crown by his brother’s casket. “ you don’t need to be cruel. ” & he tastes tears, hot and salty. nimble fingertips pressing them into paled cheekbones. that hummingbird in his throat : dead. bloodied, choking on bones & gravestones. he is always in that room. “ you don’t know that, you don’t know what could happen outside of this walls. we could be together. ” & he is spinning on his axis, finger and thumb unthreading grief soaked flesh. he wavers. “ we could ! always together, and then one day i’ll be walking home and get shot. bleed out on the pavement, and you’ll be alone, just like you want. - ” he stops, bile rising, - nauesea choking. there was so much blood. that permating stetch that threaded lace into the lining of his stomatch. feasting. help. 

A  GHOST  SITS  THICK  LIKE  FOG  as jamie labors shallow breath. air turned cold, brushing against cracked lips, sealed shut. the greats whisper to him when he shut his eyes, keats and eliot prising broken soliloquy, sowing together shattered remains, but when he wakes again all that’s left is weight. and he would carry more, if there was any more to bare. he’d carry it all. hunched back and words that dance on the page in front of him, he doesn’t have much left to give.  “how many days is it now?”  because he’s straining to make out whether the dragon came at beowulf encouraged or enraged, and when he looks up he sees more bone than cheek. his textbook falls closed at his side, defeated, like something will go away if you don’t look at it, like problems dissipate in decisive silence.  “you know you could turn in a serviette with just your name on it and pass the course,”  an exhale, at his side now. and it’s true. because he’s the prince of england. because his brother’s dead. because he’s skin and bones and grief barely held together. he’s hard to look at, but jamie’s gaze doesn’t fall; stubborn and enamored, it never has.  “i worry about you. a bit. you feel really far away.”  reads: i’m scared shitless. come back.

THE HAUNTING OF THE WINDORS embeds rotten into bones, wrapped in porcelain, - it’s malleable until it clogs into the back of his throat. that splintered childhood awaiting in the debris. those sticky sweet summers ; those cries that would permate into the cracks of the palace. he has forgotten how to breathe with a chest that is managled, - thorns pressed into bloodied remains. he speaks spitting, - drowning. “ coming on three. ”  he is not sure whether what he has said is the truth, only that his frame threatens to waver in his seat ; and he dreams of sun dazed features prising lips, spliting open on the bed until a tremor will choke. bitterness wraps unfamiliar arms, - pressing finger and thumb into open wounds until he cannot see anything but his brother’s ghost that awaits when he closes hues. star speckled vision. “ i’m sorry, my love. ” & he is. because he cannot bare to press his frame into the other, because he cannot force unshed tears to fall, because he cannot love the same way he had done before. “ i haven’t been a very good boyfriend. ” and the word tastes heavy, unspoken, - secrets whispered into cupped hands. “ i’ll be better. ”

location : oxford dorms .

@mvthologys​

he holds the dearly depatured in his mouth, culminating a graveyard that is outgrown & forgotten amongst his teeth. his brother’s casket held in his throat. he cannot swallow it without tasting blood. caked & dry. grief came in plucked sweaters, a funeral televised, and unshed tears. denial. anger wavers beneath the surface, open wounds laid bare & prodded, dipped. phone calls ignored. he cannot remember the last time he had called adelaide. so he hides amongst pages unturned, a safe haven protuding speckles of sunlight casting his hollowed bones. “ if i pull another all nighter, do you think i’ll finally finish this coursework ? ” tired hues glance towards his lover, & he wants to reach into his chest and prise open tenderness, - that sweetness that dews. 

a stomach that lurches before he can get a word out, ill fated or mad, to think the sight of a windsor can be so utterly consuming. to see curls and not think of the vines that grow cracks in the cobblestone between them. to see skin painted blue in the moonlight instead of the red tapestry of interwoven conspiracy. his only love, born of his only hate.  “i’ve waited all my life for you,”  preened from lips that can not hold back a smile, not anymore. cheeks that will never again know a frown, for how could they? and jamie may be young but he’s not foolish; he knows love when it strikes him in the chest, when the sight of elijah alone is enough to dizzy his fermented longing. cupid’s bow never once has missed. 

it’s only a lonely moment before he’s over the banister, soft hands  ( affluent, educated )  cusp softer jaw  ( immortal, ethereal )  and a swelling heart beats a trumpet song.  “damn them both,”  a whisper and a shout, definitively ushered from a mind made up.  “i had to see you. i couldn’t breathe, lying awake. dreaming of this moment.”  his hands are combing, entangling themselves in dark tresses, as though he’s never known the sensation of touch. prodding, searching, starving for him.  “damn them all .  you know what they’ll say, if they ever catch on. and how can someone be so wrong?”  against his lips, gentle, humming a tune of sweet sorrow.  “it would take a flood to keep me away. a fire. both.”  his eyes alight with something unhinged, godly. finally their lips meet  –  jamie’s never been more desperate for anything. he could swallow elijah whole, his heart already has.  

“elijah, i think you’re the sun and i’m the moon. i won’t exist without you anymore. i’d sooner perish.”  his lips trail longing onto porcelain neck, feverish. damn the gods in all the heavens, this is worship. he can’t hold tight enough, fear yanking gnawing tearing at a twisted stomach. 

& he is to be placed on an altar. baptised amongst that tenderness that gnaws, drown in the abyss of holy water that sacrifices those desires. “ you have ruined me for anyone else. ” for it is true. how could he look at another without those honey pooled hues ? trace fingertips upon skin that does not bleed the enemies of their fathers ? he has been waiting for this. swallowing greed, mouths prised with a hymn he had recited upon meeting his lover. o jamie ! the words falter, lodged beneath tongue tied madness, cupid’s painted petals swooning. he had not known of love until tonight, but beneath him he is reborn, - alcohol dancing in the back of his mouth, that burning that churns; fragmented exhaustion. oh he could drown, feast amongst the sticky sweet desires. his love. that love love love.

❝ for  never  was  a  story  of  more  woe ❞   ( @angcls​ ) 

one sleepless night. an eternal contortion of time, it seemed, that separated him from his darkest longing. there had been rosaline before him, a twisting desire plucking gently from his chest, without wound. without grief. jamie’s world had not begun until last night, of that he was sure. he felt mad, driven lovesick blind, stumbling through a hedge maze and knowing what awaited him when he emerged. he would tear through thick brush if he had to  –  if it meant his mind would fall finally silent, devoid of a nagging whisper. ELIJAH. he had to see elijah. 

before the ball  –  gentle touches unmasking sharp cheekbones both –  his life had seemed so meticulous. marry appropriately. honor your family. with a dutiful head and claw marks at his neck, keeping full only on glances. on grazes. it had to be enough. there was not a future for a hawthorne outside of propriety. exile, which hath more terror in his look. banishment, do not say banishment. threats of a father he had never known to tell a lie. he felt mad, and perhaps he truly was, to risk it all for one more stolen moment. but what sin could hide behind the steady roar of his heart, the blown pupils of the windsor unmasked? 

green thicket gives way to a balcony, so far above him it had to be nearing the heavens, and how fitting a home for someone nearing an angel?  “elijah,”  his voice carrying of its own accord, flushed with something like hope and wine.  “i know full well the risks,”  as he’d pondered them until they lost their meaning,  “but i had to see you again. tonight.”  he would climb the garden wall, long legs and sturdy hands gripping to vine, to jutting brick. perhaps it is by will alone he even reaches the balcony at all.  “damn it all, elijah. i haven’t known love until that kiss.”  his whole body is aflame, calloused palms holding him upright, he’s numb and he’s alive at once. there isn’t anything like it.  “tell me you feel the same, or else i’ll never recover.” 

❝ did my heart love ‘til now ? ❞

o ! how before the night had undressed him; danced feral fingertips amongst unchartered flesh, crushed lips upon honey-dewed petals, -  he had not yet been awakened. simply dormant beneath the thumb of his parents, plucking wings that had engraved his family name across his back: hidden. awaiting for another’s hand to be pressed against the curving of his spine, padded tips brandishing a loyalty that his father had demanded. due to be betrothed to another by the evening had settled into a dusting that lulled. he had not known how long he had been holding his breath until hues had settled upon his.

& his head turns, prising swollen lips stained red. someone something seeming to grasp hold of the lining of his stomach until he is unthreading, - spinning into the pooling of sticky love love love ! ‘ was that was this was ? ’  he had pondered. smeared glittered features that holds the remains of their secret decorating his pillow. plush desires alighting a fire; jamie jamie jamie. his name resides the fatal beating of his heart, and he wonders if he will ever rid of it. perhaps he doesn’t want too, instead, hold it against splintered jaw, - lathering a tongue until cheeks turn pink. he must be careful with his nurse, he reminds himself, whose eyes had rolled at the sight of his return, his hands desperately slamming & locking his bedroom door. awaiting for his hammering heart to lull into a gentle surrender.

HE’S SICKLY SWEET, INFURIATING, NAUSA.  he’s more a home than this palace, than england, than the shores of monaco where he took his first idle steps. his mother’s arms, reaching extended cold palms. never quite longer than his father’s. he doesn’t feel like his voice is loud enough to drown out his betrayal, wants to cover his mistakes with silk longing, kiss over them. there was a time when this wasn’t so difficult.  “i’m sorry .”  because he doesn’t know what else to say, has run out of excuses that could possibly silence the dull ringing in his ears, the whispers of deficiency. it’s his father’s voice. it’s his own. 

he has to hang his head lest elijah see the contorting, twisting anger that slips just out of his control. men may not cry but they can rage. fists into villages and fire over holy grounds. he wishes he’d learned the language of gentleness before meeting his foil. wishes he’d known what love looked like before it slapped him across the face, dug deep roots into his skin. held still so he could sleep, one night more. one night more. i’ll see you when i wake. time since oxford cotton passed with the grogginess of a dream, an unpleasant one, grey where there should have been vibrant colour.  and before elijah, still, there had been others whose lips tasted like forgetting and bodies felt like escape  –  but there was no soul that remedied the ache so completely. if he could write it down ..  maybe he would find the words. but for now his throat was dry and his head ached and he longed for something that felt less like depravity and more like virtue.  “you know you aren’t.” 

if he was stronger he might have closed the book there, ignored the way his feet mirrored shuffling steps, dragging him closer and closer until he was wiping caked knuckles against too short trousers. like his blood was sin and would burn against pale flesh.  “you shouldn’t have come here,”  but he means  ‘thank you for always coming back.’  lesser men would give up on someone who looked so much like impulsivity and a lifetime of regret. his hands fit into the corners of elijah’s jaw like they always had, even if he feels like he’s outgrown his own skin.  “i can’t remember the last time we were alone.”  it’s a lie, he remembers oxford with the clarity of yesterday, but he doesn’t feel like the same boy. not with a lifetime between then and now. his thumbs pad at physical hurt until he’s wiping clean tears with outstretched hands. his own mess to pick back up. there’s no one else.  “i don’t think i’m good for you,”  but imagining any other body in his place makes him sick.  “i’ve never been –  lij. i know i messed up, fucking hell. but i’m sorry.”  he’s scared, feels it in the tremor in his hands. traitorous bastards.  “i don’t want you to leave again. there’s truly not .. anyone else.” 

HE’S BROKEN BONES, TWISTED, LEFT TO ROT AMONGST THE DEBRIS. he cannot count the sun-kissed mornings that had fleeted their memories together, only fumble for the absence of touch he yearns. touched starved. ravenous to sink teeth into supple flesh, bleed honey dewed raspberry kisses, smeared tongue lapping. he wavers; severing blushed features. jamie ! jamie ! jamie ! he recites his name as a eulogy, that bruised longing, open casket chest that he had squeezed into all those months ago. set up shop, home. O, he wishes he was home. I’M SORRY. only, he had learnt ‘sorry’ in fumbled gazes, back straightened shrugs. he had learnt sorry as ‘you already know i do not mean what i said, it does not need to be said aloud’, so he had learnt to abolish the heartbeat that fluttered in his throat. gouged the hummingbird that fluttered, drink the blood, choke on it.

hot tears burn, scolding the remains of his facade he had sewn when his father; whose scent had soaked into open wounds, tugged a frostbitten grief and laughed. men did not cry, but elijah had scarified himself by pulling teeth, - feasted on a diet of salty dewed cruelness until the ache in his stomach yearned for anger. something that he did not know where to place, so simply allowed it to sting. swelling, swelled. ready to burst so he shook, hands by his side. it was pass, slowly. like the night will soon dissolve, and the undressing will stop, and he will bloom baited trauma into the space between them. unwilling roots embedded. he reaches towards jamie with unchartered legs, paled, stumbling. “ you’re everything to me, there’ll never be anyone else. ” & he wants to laugh, the way his father had done, - hereditary, painful. for all he sees is him, all he will ever see is him. blinded, his stomach lurches. the scent of sweet air hummed, permeated, soaked the flooring. oh jamie ! he’s a love sick fool, he could devour him whole; chewing bones, sucking on feeble ruins.

he unravels. speckled vision blurring. alcohol still dancing in the back of his mouth, that burning that churns; fragmented exhaustion. he cannot pin point when his hands had wove into the hollowed cheeks of his lover. hues darting desperately, tearing from the haven he had made amongst honey-brown pools. oh he could drown, feast amongst the sticky sweet desires. his love. oh, that love love love, that burned from the tips of fingertips. “ i love you. ” he’s sick. frightened. dipping his hand until it brushes darkened locks, fingertips teasing the tresses that met like a halo amongst the dusting of sunlight that permeates darkness. “ i love you. ” the tips of his toes rise, but he is spinning, lips pressing against the corners of his mouth. he sighs. pressing a second kiss to the left of his cheek, lathering honeysuckle that oozes from open wounds. “ you’re enough for me, you’ve always been. you’re everything, you’re mine. ”

HE COULDN’T POSSIBLY FORGET WHAT’S burned itself onto his flesh. duty and honour and other lies, stashed in memories of playing the knight when his father wanted only a king. of staring into eyes that once captured the stars overhead, the knight and the king together and small. he hadn’t yet learned that country was religion and his heart was blasphemy. “right,  how  could i forget?” and he couldn’t he wanted to he couldn’t, “dutiful elijah  BLOODY  windsor!” humor died by jamie’s rusted sword before the laugh can leave his throat. bubbling, acid in his stomach, hands at his neck, clawing. eyes that worship a holy body, lips that poison all that’s good. he wanted to hold him. rough hands shaved soft over swooping curls. suck dry the pain that was his, and his, and theirs, and beyond. instead, he chokes, “you have no right to be here.”

except elijah owns the key to every dark part of him. these quarters. his family estate. trauma and suffering and forbidden longing and  a moat  around his stillborn heart. clutching his chest like he could feel it there. bloody palm, sunken ribs.

‘no one’s ever known me like  YOU  do.’ it’s still true, and he can feel the way he’s being pried open, himself a book cracking at the spine. “don’t do that.” gentle, at first, a moment of peaking clarity before it’s all ash and smoke. “that’s not fair, don’t fucking do that.” sometimes jamie feels so much he feels nothing at all, trashing under a wave that pulls his whole weight under. right now he’s ungodly numb. usually it’s with anger he reemerges. that’s all he is sometimes, a boy born of rage, the bear that chewed and spit up the dove. “you expect me to say yes? don’t be stupid. don’t be fucking daft, lij. it’s unbecoming.” his father swears too much when he’s angry. “i came here for  you . i left oxford. i made promises to my father, i .. you know how shit it was? to sit in a room with him, tell him i dropped out of uni? don’t do that.” his fists curl around swollen flesh. is his bedroom shrinking? he feels too big, like something vile, dangerous. elijah’s standing there looking wrecked  ( it’s jamie’s fault isn’t it? )  and he grabs the bedpost instead. “he was like everyone else.” and he means that  ‘he didn’t taste like you. he didn’t sink into my skin, cling to all the bad parts until they were small again. he didn’t fix anything, me, you.’  tears willed not to fall. hawthornes don’t cry. not if they know what’s good for them.

that hurt, constant, unwilling. tummy bruising. he can unfold the parts of himself that he had tucked beneath the trauma. unravelling until he is placed on an altar of bloodied debris. he names it jamie. “ don’t do what ?” he knows, but is dragged underneath the surface, - hands clawing crescent shaped markings. breathing seemed easier pressed against his lips. “ you claim you have done this for me, yet find comfort in somebody else ? so easy to forget.” he wishes he could, instead is shuddered by the tremor that chokes his frame. what colour eyes do we have, ‘lijah? Adelaide’s voice spirals in the back of his mind, poison seeping into his frame. he was always so sickly, darling, perhaps we should take him to the hospital? touched starved, he pales, - those fucking blinding lights. that scent that burns. he was sick, birthed from cursed bodies. 

terror soaks tenderness, that hummingbird - frail, whose wings had been clipped by the gnawing of jaws. waits. silently. desperately culminating the remains of his father’s scent that soaks those nightmares. hibernating beneath waves that drown, he had once choked on the rotting. the permeating hunger that fed, that softness, the sensitivity. he had been taught to control, to swallow loss until it had remained a splinter in the back of his throat. If he had been stronger; he would’ve been able to pluck it. Instead, he settled for tongue soaked kisses lathering numbness. o, how he adored those evenings. when his lover would climb into an opened casket chest, clasping the memorial program; turning pages until he could no longer hear those dutiful mourners. it hurts where you left. 

his frame threatens to waver, a torrent of unshed tears peaking through fluttering lashes. “ am I like everyone else ?” he prises with sun soaked fingers, greedily, tongue tied. blushed cheeks wet, met with the swiping. his mother had a habit of doing the same; collecting salty treats. feasting on the parts he had clawed like bile to the surface. he steps forward. head raised to the slaughter.

THESE WALLS ARE A PRISON. his rib cage is a prison, too, caging the heart that dares to still  beat after it’s own shattering. everything about him is defiance. everything about him is submission. he’s an animal, pacing marble floors that should be shattering beneath heavy steps. the gaul of the world to keep turning  AFTER.  there isn’t supposed to be an after.  his happy ending forfeited to the lips of another, his tragedy cut short by something easy. something  less.  and the reality of it has only sunk in now, in this private twilight. his fist has already found a mirror, unable to withstand the sight of his own reflection. his bed is already more feathers that silk, pillows torn open because he needs to place his anger somewhere, and it’s not like he will be able to sleep properly. like he ever has. 

this isn’t how he wanted elijah to find him. not with his head pounding so loudly all he can see is red red red. red on his fist, red on his lips ..  HIS  lips.  “lij..”  traitorous hands reach for this physical embodiment of all of his pain, until his sensibility grabs him by the throat and the rest of his thoughts catch there, suffocated.  HE KNOWS.  he’s drunk and he’s bleeding and  HE KNOWS.  “you care?”  it’s a laugh. maybe he’s delusional. drunk on rage, with no where to set it down so instead he carries.  “you walk out of my life twice and still manage to come back?”  he’s speaking out of hurt, but his tone betrays him, betrays them both, twists his tongue until he’s nothing but sharp. the prince of england.  long live the monarchy.  he hates the reminder, every reason why his one want, the only want he’s ever known, will fester. this love is tragedy and this love is decay. that’s all it will ever be. all it ever can be, because he’s the ‘goddamn prince of england’.  “it was a mistake,”  slips from swollen lips before he can stop it, his heart still managing to defy every ounce of his will.  “i was drunk. like you are right now.”  like he wouldn’t notice. like he doesn’t notice everything about him. like his head isn’t full of him. always.  “he was there. and you weren’t, my prince.” dead eyes, a soul squashed behind them.  lese majesty. 

ROTTEN EULOGIES LATHER, he can recite those memories that climb into the dustings of three am. the speckles of sanity that would gnaw upon his soft flesh dripping in a sweetness that had been left behind. O ! JAMIE ! he had written poems about the curving of lashes, how desperately he wishes to be a dew amongst them, - to climb between rose blushed cheek bones once splattered in an assortment of desires. sticky. but this is not the time for that. no. instead he will bury their remains of love amongst his brother’s body that peers in the rearview mirror. god help and forgive me. “ i did not walk out of your life. ” he’s quick to retort, building walls that rome himself had destroyed ; that bruised longing pressed until his hues sink. “ i had a duty to my family, to this country. you seem to forget that. ” though he, himself, have forgotten to gather the broken wingless skeleton that clings to his frame. that ghosting, - the fucking haunting. 

YOU’VE RUINED ME, he proclaimed, plucking those greedy greedy greedy needing that had been inflicted upon him. “ was he good ? ” a sickness burns, churning in the back of his throat. he cannot breathe, nor stand strong in grief stained clothing. he mourns the loss of his heart, the bleeding surrender that dews in the corner of his hues. he waits for the world to stop spinning. to pick the shards of his soul from his bedroom floor, to breathe. i don’t want to lose you. again.  he squeezes shut the gaping wounds, blushed fingertips swiping stray tears. “ was he everything you wanted? ” someone without sin, whose body had carved into yours without fear. 

IN THE EYE OF THE HURRICANE, silent violent rages. he chokes. nauseated, reaching delicate finger and thumb against a bottle that burns. how long would it take for his body to succumb to a blissful snarl, left to be feasted on by broken remains of men whose teeth carve into the bruising of his throat? he waits. alone. the walls of his room closing until he is heaving at the taste of paint, the carving of furniture. that fucking scent; opulent, homely. he wants to burn, prise himself of flesh until he nothing but a tremor of anger that hunts.

he wavers, feet stumbling. by god, what would his mother think? peached shaped wounds tearing at his knees. he cannot remember falling, only the taste of iron that speckles his mouth, - open, gaping. he had done this to him. i love you, i love you. though they taste different than the night before. lathered in a hurt he had not felt in a long time, - perhaps betrayal. “ you’re an asshole. ” the words bubble in the pit of his stomach, bile coursing. he sways. the safety of jamie’s room an escape. “ you don’t think i hear these ‘rumours’, i fucking hear everything, - i’m the goddamn prince of england. ” he was always unbecoming when drunk, that arrogance that he had swallowed like pills coming to the surface. he hates himself. “ my goddamn cousin ! did you have a fuckin’ stroke? ”