Too Big to Fail

And sweetness pooled about the corners of my mouth. I yearned then. I yearned for murder and suicided. I was drawn to this almost so deep as I was drawn to life forever. I dug my fingernails deep into my skin. I was young and weak. I bled as slowly as at once. At once it was bow-legged and slow-flowing.

One night I dreamed forever. I dreamed of a universe wherein I tasted sweetness. I tasted the rawness of sustenance. I tasted the tang-iron of blood. Blood-manna. Blood-sweet. Each inch of my skin stained sweet, stained red, and sweetness soaked my hair. Sweetness ran into my eyes and sweetness burned as it rolled down my cheeks.

I became alone. I had not yet broken from it. I was soon to break.

And I as she did not. I suffered differently. I suffered less. Yet less notwithstanding, each came to know between us the push beyond. Beyond the anticipated and the reconciled. Beyond the bounds of our nascent sense and unto that which we did not as we could not understand.

My then-girlfriend was gang-raped at a party. I was fifteen, and she was sixteen then.

My mother told me of her rape.

Once and only have I stood up for myself. Twice, nearly. Not quite.

Yet thrice he did not weep for the coming to know, and time and again he did not.

Twice, twice he did not weep in the coming as he had ever wept wetly before.

Her sight she saw also. This she deemed fine fleet to slip him.