♚ × ♞

“I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you, and I don’t give a damn what anyone has to say. Let them tell me that you will ruin me. Let them warn me about the blood pooling in the lines of your palm, the disaster lurking at the edges of your shadow, the sleepless nights and sunless days shifting in your eyes. Let them talk their voices hoarse. I won’t listen, you know. I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you, and even you cannot convince me otherwise. You can chase me away all you want, my love. Wave your steel-blade fingers in front of my eyes. Shout at me with your death rattle voice. Kiss me with your bloodthirsty lips. Rattle my bones with your earthquake heartbeat. Try all you want, my love, but you cannot save someone who doesn’t want to be saved and if loving you is damnation– and if losing you is salvation— then by God, I will leap into every circle of Hell with my eyes wide open and a grin on my lips. As the snowman loves the Summer As the shadow loves the Sun As the boy with wings loves the Sea–”

“Please, let him be soft. I know you made him with gunmetal bones and wolf’s teeth. I know you made him to be a warrior a soldier a hero. But even gunmetal can warp and even wolf’s teeth can dull and I do not want to see him break the way old and worn and overused things do. I do not want to see him go up in flames the way all heroes end up martyrs. I know that you will tell me that the world needs him. The world needs his heart and his faith and his courage and his strength and his bones and his teeth and his blood and his voice and his– The world needs anything he will give them. Damn the world, and damn you too. Damn anyone that ever asked anything of him, damn anyone that ever took anything from him, damn anyone that ever prayed to his name. You know that he will give them everything until there is nothing left of him but the imprint of dust where his feet once trod. You know that he will bear the world like Atlas until his shoulders collapse and his knees buckle and he is crushed by all he used to carry. Dear God, you have already made an Atlas. You have already made an Achilles and an Icarus and a Hercules. You have already made so many heroes, and you can make another again. You can have your pick of heroes. So please, I beg you– he is all that I have, and you have so many heroes and the world has so many more. Let him be soft, and let him be mine.”