#wildething

---excerpt from a skype conversation with @wildething that’s #tooreal

          ❛     ———-OKAY    ?     ❜     the word is echoed back without bitterness, but rather with an almost confusion. like she’s forgotten what it means. a lot of things lose their meaning in the endless hours before dawn. the blood rolling off a split lip is neglectable in the low light, obscured like the bruises slowly beginning to bloom across her cheek. she should have been inside hours ago, and she was, briefly. the fist full of dirty bills on the table stand as evidence to that fact, but she left as quickly as she came, leaving orange stains on the soles of her shoes and across her palms from climbing the long disused fire escape to the roof. three stories may as well be a mountain as she gazes over the quiet streets below.

          ❛     …i’m    tired,    oscar.    i’m    so    fucking    tired.     ❜     names are a privilege they can rarely afford, never sure who’s listening. she personally is quite aware of how clever chimera’s bugs can be but she can’t grit her teeth through it tonight. voice trembles, quiet but unbroken. she has known suffering intimately, as they all have, but it has taken something out of her. the broken glass of her heart is incomplete and carving into her insides.

          fingers twist together in her lap and the severeness of her features softens. she is 30 years old today. her only remaining daughter only a few months from the title of teenager, her son likely can’t remember her name. she feels hollow. like if she opened her mouth and tried to expel the whole breadth of her anger and frustration nothing would come out. if she tried to carve past the surface she would simply crack like a doll. eyes close tight for a moment and maybe if she opens them at the right second this will all be a dream, but when she opens them there is nothing to greet her but a dark night with little care and the faint figure of oscar in her peripherals.

          ❛     it’s    my    birthday———-    i’m    turning    30.     ❜     emilie’s voice is hardly more than a whisper. this is not something she ever discusses, and fingers untwist to trace over the rough ledge.     ❛     …and    i’m    not…    okay    i    mean.     ❜

                 ❝ i’ll make sure to keep my distance. ❞

                     ❝ ...i hope you find the accommodations quite to your likings, mr. wilde. ❞

          a pause that might have lasted a millisecond or a millenium as hemingway tries to collect his thoughts. it is so rare that he must pause to reflect upon what to say next. some biting wit or sarcasm always resting on the tip of his tongue ready to strike, but now he finds himself stripped bare of it. what is there to be made of the paranoia than the accusation of delusion? what is there to be said of a man that years for the taste of lead? rather than give voice or credence to the demons in his chest, he smiles, and drowns his worry with a swig of scotch, ever his charming self.

                      ❝ what would i even have to lie about, wilde? ❞

                 ❝ when the rich wage war it’s the poor who die. ❞

          well— at least finals are over. he’s half certain he failed most of them, but at least it’s DONE. oscar is probably right— and he probably cares more than he lets on, but without further ado he punctuates his thoughts with a swig from his flask.

                   ❝ that depends— you got anything that pairs well with whiskey? ❞