then perish !

FLICK & SEAN. 

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.

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. 

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. ”

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?

If anyone were to witness the way Sully hovered over his brother’s bed, staring ominously as Shep slept while feeding himself mouthfuls of Lucky Charms halfheartedly, they’d assume they were watching the open sequence of a horror movie. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary for them, though - if anyone were to ever take a crack at describing Sully, considerate would never come to mind, finally bending over and shouting, “Hey!” obnoxiously loudly into Shep’s ear to ensure he woke up startled and frazzled, “Hey - I need you to drive me to work later, I’m banned from taking the bus again. Are you busy? Or can you give me the money for an Uber? I’m broke.” @mvthologys​

HE  COULDN’T  DESCRIBE  IT ,  but there was an instinct he’d developed over the years, something paternal, that alerted him even asleep to his siblings’ presence. what some might call a gift, a half asleep shep knew better as a curse. years of raising feral children and you didn’t think it was cute anymore when you were awoken from a pleasant enough dream -- sitting on a wraparound porch somewhere in the country side with a whiskey in hand, bird watching.  “you couldn’t have woken up the other twelve people that live in this fucking apartment?”  grunted, like a bear trying to speak english. he was the adult, though, he supposed, the one with the job, the income. the strength and resolve to stick around when parents couldn’t. and underneath it all, he loved being needed. even if he would never admit it, never had.  “should i even ask?”  once he was finally awake enough for the bus comment to kick in, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and reaching for the pack of malboros he kept at his nightstand. some people were above smoking inside. shep was not one of those people.  “what’d you spend that money i gave you the other day on? am i fueling a drug habit? i’m going to cut you off.”  but he wouldn’t. sully asked and shep provided. something about love and family and whatever else his girlfriend would tell him later were his kryptonite. 

“Here, swap with me,” Leaning against a tree in her backyard, Drew waved her popsicle around, going as far as to be obnoxious as it came dangerously close to Spencer’s face. Cherry was her favourite flavour, but she knew it was Spencer’s as well, willing to swap her own for the others orange, “How many are left? My dad’s done working in an hour, he told me if he caught me stealing from the store again he’s taking me to the police station himself. It’s in your best interest we down these before he sees, who’s gonna drive you to school if I’m in jail?” @mvthologys​

ORANGE  SYRUP  HAD  ALREADY  BEGAN  to drip onto her fingers, and she made a point of slurping it up obnoxiously before extending the popsicle out to her friend, wild eyed and smile bright.  “tell your dad your constant supervision is literally .. like .. necessary for my future. i don’t think he wants me crashing on your couch for the rest of my life. but i’ll do it.”  spencer had a habit of couch surfing, finding it was easier to sleep when she shared a roof with her friends than in her broken bed at home. a twin, one of the slats had split so the mattress nearly fell through every time she sat down.  “there’s 3 left. a purple and two green. gross. it always feel like i’m going down on an alien when i eat the green ones. really hard to get the image out of my head.”  her eyes widened, like she was picturing something she shouldn’t.  “you’re too nice to go to jail. they’d eat you alive in there.” 

— your heart I wonder about all the time. Worry too.

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  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.

JAMIE  &  ELIJAH . 

bloom  ( paper kites ) 

in the morning when i wake and the sun is coming through:  you fill my lungs with sweetness, and you fill my head with you  ..  when the evening pulls the sun down, and the day is almost through.  oh ,  the whole world it is sleeping.  but my world is YOU.  can i be close to you? 

samson  ( regina spektor ) 

you are my sweetest downfall. i loved you first, i loved you first. beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth; i have to go, i have to go. your hair was long when we first met. samson went back to bed not much hair left on his head. he ate a slice of wonder bread and went right back to bed, and the history books forgot about us and  THE BIBLE DIDN’T MENTION US ,  not even once !

i and love and you  ( the avett brothers ) 

one foot in and one foot back, but it don't  PAY  to  LIVE  like  THAT .  so i cut the ties and i jumped the tracks for never to return. brooklyn, brooklyn take me in. are you aware the shape i'm in? my hands they shake, my head it spins. brooklyn, brooklyn take me in ..

if we were vampires  ( jason isbell and the 400 unit ) 

HOME  ;  EDWARD  SHAPRE  &  THE  MAGNETIC  ZEROS 

moats and boats and waterfalls, alleyways and pay phone calls  --  i've been everywhere with you. that's true. laugh until we think we'll die, barefoot on a summer night. never could be sweeter than with you ! 

NEPTUNE  ;  SLEEPING  AT  LAST 

i must be a poster child prodigy, thread by thread i come apart. if brokenness is a work of art, surely this must be my masterpiece. i'm only honest when it rains. if i time it right, the thunder breaks when i open my mouth. i want to tell you but i don't know how. an open book, with a torn out page and my inks run out. 

TWO  HIGH  ;  MOON TAXI 

when you feel the world around you spinning out of control. you can find someone around you to bring you out of the cold. but you don't ever have to hide what you really feel inside.

I  WILL  FOLLOW  YOU  ;  RIVVRS

𝑰 𝑾𝑨𝑵𝑵𝑨 𝑩𝑬 𝒀𝑶𝑼𝑹 𝑮𝑰𝑹𝑳𝑭𝑹𝑰𝑬𝑵𝑫  ( 𝒈𝒊𝒓𝒍 𝒊𝒏 𝒓𝒆𝒅 ) 

“ i don’t want to be your friend / i want to kiss your lips ” 

𝑺𝑯𝑬  ( 𝒅𝒐𝒅𝒊𝒆 ) 

“ am i allowed to look at her like that? / could it be wrong / when she’s just so nice to look at? ” 

𝑺𝑶𝑵𝑮 𝑭𝑶𝑹 𝒁𝑼𝑳𝑨  ( 𝒑𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒑𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒕 ) 

“ i will not open myself up this way again / nor lay my face to the soil, nor my teeth to the sand ” 

𝑬𝑨𝑺𝒀  ( 𝒕𝒓𝒐𝒚𝒆 𝒔𝒊𝒗𝒂𝒏 ) 

( OPEN. )

ST. LOUIS VERSE. he’s been nursing his drink, keeping watch for anyone he could lament to. opportunity presents itself in the form of a straggler, or at least he can only assume since they don’t appear to be busy. “ the 7/11 on the corner of west is a total rip-off, ” lukas begins, stopping directly in front of them. “ nerds ropes are desolate. like, no one buys them anymore. i wanted a treat. sure, maybe i shouldn’t have eaten the thing in the middle of the aisle, but i was going to pay for it. was just too hungry. needed nourishment before i could make the trek to the counter. anyway, they’ve banned me. i was thinking of starting a petition…for my rights. you’d sign it, right ? it’s kind of sick what they did. and again, let me reiterate, this was over a fuckin’ nerds rope. ”

ST. LOUIS VERSE — “Ow, that’s unfortunate.” Davie cringed as a man outside the local college bar body-slammed another onto the sidewalk, resulting in the ‘victim’ to refuse to stand again. Huffing a sigh, she handed over a fifty to a nearby strange who slipped back into the pub again. “S’what I get for betting money on the underdog.” 

❝ 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.

“ jamie ! ” tongued tied  & wine soaked, he wavers, - giddy. his brother had warned him of his affects of alcohol before, the dangers of wolves dressed in sheep’s clothing. though he ignores those warnings, hands prising open the doors to his balcony. OH GOD, he’s smitten, bruised, obsessed. foolish. “ i had not known of love until tonight ! ” his lips press into an opened shaped grin, hymns bleeding into open wounds, - mouth dripping. “ but you shouldn’t be here, my father, - my brother. ”

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.  

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.” 

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. ”

WHAT ELSE COULD FILL THIS VOID BUT the blurred outline stood before him? he sees him, in between blinks when it’s just his eyelids and memory cloaked in daylight. but when he opens his eyes he starts to fade, grasping at dissolving edges. dormitories that stood ancient before they’d made a home of them left to rot in their wake. that’s what loving elijah felt like, an earthquake that ripped through him and left only a before and an after. his life a play in two parts, each growing just as tragic. shakespearian longing and silhouette lovers. what happened last night, it feels like act three; long awaited through chilling intermission. that he had done something permanent. 

it was beautiful to him, the way the prince shed tears like a skin. to watch as he felt and felt and felt and to maybe soak some of it up, save a little of the feeling for himself. tuck it away somewhere between cement bones and iron flesh and hope it softened him from the inside out. to be anything but a fire that devoured everything whole. he saw art where lesser men saw weakness, poetry written with words unspoken. it had to be a movement, with the way his heart sings back. he swipes at another tear, not to erase hurt but to taste it, licking a line up his own thumb. he watches him as he does it, eyes preening into a soul laid open before him. his for the taking. like it always had been.  “will anyone be looking for you?”  because he’s asking him to stay the night, like they're in oxford and not a foreign palace. family down the hall. pretend the clock turned back and press against fresh wounds until they scabbed. 

words that would ring mute spoken by anyone else rip into thick skin.  love , so bittersweet in it’s divine longing. it was enough for romeo and juliet, to have nothing else but the feeling. to know it is a victory that condemns them both to a lifetime of nothing but defeat, it would have to be enough.  “yes,”  a whisper, a conformation, because he knows the way elijah’s gut must twist when he thinks too hard. knows he’s betraying his family. himself. and he says it anyway.  i love you.   how lucky, jamie has to be, to be worth it all.  “i love you. i tried to stop and i couldn’t.”  and he isn’t drunk but he swims in an intoxication. he’d kissed him, only just the night before, but it had been wrong. rotten. prying open closed doors. it’s different, with elijah’s lips on him, cherry sweetness and a chest that might burst. if he let himself, he’d weep.  “say it again,”  because he’s starving in his longing, a beast out of famine.  “just keeping saying it. until i forget everything else.”  his own carnage. elijah’s. his arms pull him, his head arching until he’s nosing pale neck. curls. holding him fiercely, like he might dissolve. lipping tresses, skin.  “tread softly, you tread on my dreams,”  yates; borrowing words when his own fail him. an old habit he cling stubbornly to.  “are you afraid?”  whispered with lips pressed to the hollow his of ear. 

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.

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.”