The shape of me as made by your love
Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial
Warning for: Wounds, blood.
--
He says my name so many times, I almost forget that it's me he's calling to. He shapes the syllables in such broken desperation, and I feel unrecognisable to the amount of love in his voice. The shape of me made briefly whole by his pain. I want to say, 'why are you crying?' and 'It's just me.'
There's a wound just below my heart, and it's pouring through the layers of fabric. My throat has all but turned to dust, and every bone now shudders when I try to move. There's a pain, of course, and it spreads like a disease to the nerves in my fingers and toes, twitching, aching.
He says my name again. Maybe he screams it. There is static in the air, now, and on my tongue. I make out the shape of his face and wonder when I was able to see beauty in a time like this. I wonder if it had been him that made me know that the colour of his eyes nor his skin is brown, but the colour of life itself. The very thing that forced me to take in a slow, agonising, breath.
There's blood in my mouth. Copper. Iron. Something like a needle, or dirt.
I want to make his name, but my tongue has become laden with the pain. I can feel salt on my lips and realise it's his tears. I feel the bullet move between my ribs, with all the weight of love itself; I realise I had taken a bullet for him. I would laugh, had it not been a fountain from my lips, if I'd tried. Such a romantic expression declared often and bravely, and yet it's me, of all people, to see it through.
He's calling me names now. Stupid bastard. Son of a bitch. What were you thinking? He's alive to call me names. The very corner of my lips twitch as the light of the room becomes too much, and I close my eyes. There's a buzzing in my ears now. The static. The sound of death, I imagine. The pain is easing up, but I know adrenaline. I know the edge of consciousness like an old friend I never quite expect to see again.
Now I know it for what it has always been. A labour of love. A gun shot wound in the shape of every word he'd ever said to me.
My tongue is so heavy, but I make out a single word before every muscle unwinds, and my breath is released from the chasm of my agonies:
Love.














