American Novel Photo by @bladvagacian

Instagram: @atticus.verses

Defeat was a sour taste in his mouth. On his knees he hunched over, stomach heaving as he pressed a hand to the sidewalk to keep from sprawling.

The final explosion had brought the building down and the dust cleared reluctantly; a layer of it clung to him, a coating of pulverized concrete and dirt thrown by the collapse.

The ringing in his ears wasn’t enough to stifle the sound of the hero’s voice, echoing off the ruins somewhere to his left. But he could make no sense of the words themselves and trying to angered the headache already throbbing at his temples.

Arm trembling with the effort, he tried to lever himself up only to slump back down. His hand came away warm and wet when he passed it over his face in frustration. Rubbing his fingers together, he deduced that it was blood. Going by feel rather than sight, because he couldn’t see it.

He couldn’t see anything.

The sound of a cautious approach had him tensing, the measured steps soft and slow as they left the dirt and hit the sidewalk. He tempered the impulse to look up with the knowledge that doing so would be useless.

“What are you doing?” Suspicion laced the hero’s words.

The villain laughed. High pitched, bordering on hysterical. Unable to look his enemy in the eye to glare should have roused anger. Instead, fear set his heart to racing.

“Why aren’t you fighting?” The hero’s boot scuffed the concrete as they neared. “Or running?”

“I’m tired.” The intended sarcasm was made rough by emotion that he tried and failed to swallow down.

After a short pause, there was a quiet, “What’s wrong?”

Everything. The second laugh died as it began, choking on the noise when his throat constricted.

Something brushed feather light across his cheek and he flinched. “Don’t touch me.” Terror robbed his voice of its usual strength.

A hand fell atop the villain’s shoulder and he shrank away, expecting a blow. Expecting anything other than the gentle hand that cupped the side of his face.

“Can you see me?” the hero asked.

“No.” The acknowledgment broke him. The tears would have blurred his vision had he still possessed it. “I can’t see anything. I can’t-“ A single sob ripped free. “Please.”

Desperation made him grab for the hero, to anchor himself in a world gone black. He was too scared to be surprised when he was pulled into an embrace.

“Ssh. It’s-“

“It’s not okay.” The villain shuddered. “I can’t see. I can’t see. Shit.”

In the distance, a siren wailed.

Panic flared when the hero began to withdraw. “Don’t go, please don’t go.” He grabbed a fistful of clothing and held fast. “Don’t leave me here.” The people of the city would tear him apart the moment they found him vulnerable.

“I’m not leaving you.” Some emotion shook the hero’s words that the villain could not discern. “I’m going to get you out of here.”

A vicious wave of vertigo threatened to topple him as he was hauled to his feet, but the hero steadied him.

“Why?”

The hands on him flexed, a silent answer he didn’t understand. When a tug encouraged him into movement, he went unresisting.

Who, flips hearts with his hands, who

Tells of love with fingertips, who

Traces soft romance, we

We had it all

The making of a perfect life

In a day that glass shattered

Broken fragments scattered

I spend my days mending the cuts

They're far too deep

Still bleeding too much

Wondering when it will stop.

I got there early so I smoked a cig in front to wait for the place to open. It was only 9:00 AM so I had forty-five minutes before the appointment but I figured I get there early to avoid any chances of having to pay sixty dollars for not turning up. 

She got there 10 minutes late.

Alright, that was fine, sometimes shit falls on top of people and it’s nobody’s fault. I had no problem letting that slide. I asked for the paperwork I had to do before the session started, then she asked for my phone. Said she left some of her stuff at her place and she needed to call her husband in order to bring them round. Alright, that’s fine. Lives nearby she said, so it shouldn’t take long. I hand her my phone and sure enough her husband gets there within ten minutes. To make up for lost time she said I could do the paperwork while talking to her. Alright, cool, hey it seems a little unprofessional considering I have to sign my name on a paper that pertains to meeting in question and it might be imperative that those terms be agreed upon before any sort of actual discussions take place—but hey, I’m no expert. I’m not the one proudly hanging my framed degree in my office from the prestigious school of San Diego State. I’m in for the ride.

So she asks why I booked an appointment and I said

“Alright, hey, I’ve got like this constant sense of dread that never really goes away. Really seeps into every waking moment of my life and sucks the joy out of anything even remotely coated with a seasoning of happiness, and hey, at times I even get comfortable with it. I’ve somewhat accepted it as my default state and it’s not like it’s so debilitating that I can’t live with it anyway. Only sometimes it gets to be a little too much and it forces me to bed for days, or to packs of cigarettes, or to liquor, or to the cliff near my dorm that I often see in my nightly walks.

There’s also just like this anxiety, just like a little tickle in my chest and head that makes every second uncomfortable. There’s this certainty I have of the future, and I do mean certainty as I believe to be undeniable fact, that I’ll never amount to anything. And though I’m certain of it, I can’t quite seem to accept it. I try to convince myself that I can change it but every time I take the steps to do so there’s this voice in my head that keeps calling me a piece of shit every time I try and after a while I start to believe it. So I stop, after all, what’s the point of trying to be better if you’re genetically engineered to be the worst person on the planet. Sometimes the tickle goes away if I replace it with sore knuckles.

I think that might also tie in to the next thing—though I don’t want to overstep my bounds haha, you’re the expert—wherein I always reject anyone that attempts to get close to me. I think I’m doing them a favor because, after all, why should they be subjected to being attached to the worst person on the planet. Is that not the nobler act? Though the logical part of my brain always points out that I’m delusionally convincing myself to be nobler than I am because I can’t face the fact that this is an act of cowardice. But, hey, that’s also the part of my brain that failed physics so how much does it actually know, you know what I’m saying?

Anyway, weird day I’m having. My mom walked into my room earlier in the morning crying. Apparently the breast cancer is proving to be more complicated than initially thought so she needs more sessions. She looked really tired. She also panicked as soon as she saw me because apparently I woke up with blood all over my face and chests. Turns out I wounded my face in my sleep. I don’t really know how that happened. Anyway, I wanted to console her, I really did. But didn’t know how to. I tried to go for a hug but something in me just rejected the thought of going for it. I do love my mom now, but our relationship hasn’t exactly been simple throughout the years. Though we’ve finally arrived at the stage where we can just be supportive of each other, I sometimes fear that it may have come too late as there still seems to be some lingering resentment that I can’t get rid off. 

Anyway, you ever get like that?“

“I’m sorry, is that your question?”

“Ah, I guess the more pressing one would be how to deal with the constant sense of dread.”

“Oh, um, just try not to think about it.”

I think about you from time to time

check my frame of mind

as i try to find

the person that ive made you out to be

in this mind of mine

i struggle sometimes

Cause ur perfect I can't lie

I find myself staring as you

walk on by

and i wonder why

we have to do this

the back and forth

the two way talk

that leads to no conclusion

just stuck at a fork

in the road of this relationship

i mean is it a relationship

cause i coulda sworn you wanted me

two weeks ago or something

but now its nearly march

Frost bit fingers,

Cling to me,

Can’t you see?

I’m the cold,

You flee from.