⠀ ⠀⋆ ᴬ FEAR —

“i could've done more. and that ain't up for debate. i know it in my bones, and i gotta live with it.”    every day for the rest of your life,    the haunted nature of knowing all of your friends were dead,  and there was nothing you could have done to stop it,  no matter how hard you fought  [you survived despite,  was there a reason?]

“some people are evil. i've seen it.”      was rj evil?    you didn’t think so,   at least not the rj you knew in the before—     before the world ended,   before your roots had been ripped from the earth and left you as lost as the sinners you once thought so repulsive.     the world you knew ended, bone fragments scattered through soil and you worry your own lack of faith has caused the devastation. “ —i don’t think you’re evil.”

“don’t pretend like you don’t know the score.” the words are poised with a bite; like a rabid dog, your teeth are always bared, always waiting. it is all you have ever know, the chase that ends with the kill— a pyrrhic victory does not exist on the platter sat before you.

your heart beats inside the hollow auditorium of your chest like a nervous hummingbird;   it skips a beat and hair stands on end despite the warmth coursing through your veins.    there is an endurance to your faith,   similar in the way to your heart,   that without it:   you think you would cease to exist.    every spring that brought flowers to every fall that left the trees bare,   the cyclical seasons pass,   as did your fleeting moments on non-belief,   thirst for knowledge greater quenched by each new chapter,    paper thin cuts lined your pointer,   thumb wet with ink in pages flicked too quickly.    [some rushed through to simply be done,   you to reach the next chapter,   to coat yourself with an armour you could understand,  shrouded in text that gave meaning to the world].   even in the end of the world,  it was your crutch,     that there was some meaning to this apocalypse,   that bloody knees and scorched palms could not fix.  the punishment of mankind was never meant to be fair,   let the earth flood and the forests burn so that they must stare their own creation in the face,   to witness the horrors they made.     mankind was to be made in God’s own image,   so were you both not now walking hand in hand;   accepting of the death of civilisation caused by your own lack of discipline?

where have you been? [where are you going? you wonder if there is anywhere left to go,  if somewhere far from here the pastures are still green,   the water flows tranquil blue and there is peace;  far unalike the decaying grass,   rotting flesh doesn’t do much for the soil,  you weren’t sure anything would grow there again–]    be the forbidden fruit,    or an ear of corn,   you didn’t have the heart to say that the tilled soil would not provide over the harsh winters,   or beneath the scorching sun.   not there,   not where land is desiccated,    a quick flick of the blade or one of the hundreds of shots fired overhead.    you were your father’s light,   flickering/not yet extinguished.  but you can’t help but shudder the way he clutches fist around Book,   as if it could still contain the answers.   every prayer you had whispered from day one was left unanswered,   the clouds a barrier to your pleas   [you kept them in a barn,   fed them.    had it been naive to truly believe that they would come back to you?]     that it was a disease spreading over the land,   one of four horsemen.  it was the price you paid,   for your sins,    for every misdeed.    had believed it was just God reminding humanity of the price they had already paid.     and so solitude had become your normal,    sat behind bars cooing at a child who had not learnt her mother’s face,   how grief would forever be a part of her beating heart.     it helps you pretend that nothing is wrong:   opposed to staring out at the trees,    how you did not truly know the family that now surrounds you,  but knew the person that they had to become.

it’s late august,  and there is a bitter chill that is beginning to settle over the jackson landscape.      the stain of time,   you are haunted with each passing day,   as the seasons come and go with little more than weeks between visitors.    a life of solitude wasn’t what you planned,  but you think the quiet helps,  no wandering eyes begging for the story to be told again.    no one else understood,  some days you weren’t sure you did.    met grief yourself so young,  but it came fast,  unavoidable.   there had been no one to hate,   to latch the blame onto besides yourself,    and how quickly that could twist its way around your throat,   let the light out from behind your eyes.    you hadn’t let it,   fashioned yourself anew.      it had been the only option when you still wanted to live,   and to love.      you think you fell onto this love like a sword,  a bite that you can’t take back:   if you remove it,  you will remove a part of yourself along with it.   it is hard to admit that you sometimes don’t recognise the person you love,  in flashes of anger and grief.   you too,  are burning,   unable to escape before the house would crash down on you.  it is easier to play pretend,  easier to act as if you were oblivious to the unfinished mission,  how you packed your bags in seattle and left but ellie left a piece of herself there to return to.         “ellie,  what—?”      

dead end after dead end.  every time you turn around,  even path taken is closed to you as if the heavens themselves had forced you down this road,  hand-in-hand with death himself.   spots of regret wound around your spine.    there is no end to your mistakes,  you cannot find the beginning of the chain that brought you from there to here;  each one interlinked with the last where it can pool at your feet, a weight to be carried as a constant reminder to your sins.    yourself the sole occupier of a haunted house,  it was a never ending circle:  generational regret with shaky hands that resemble your fathers,  you add that to the list alongside the boots,  the ideas,  the hopes to do what is right  [you want to ignore the bloodstain that will not come out of hardwood, but he left that behind too]    in a house that swallowed bodies,  you inherited a knife's edge.    more than most, you have known what it is to be dead,  or so filled with rage you were always hungry to sink your teeth in.    you abstained.    you wanted so bad for it to be a dream,  that you did not share the same red hands.        it is in these dreams that you find the haunting realisation:   your father’s hands are red holding a seeping wound,  yours are the same crimson but gripped around a knife.    nurture damned by nature,   it had always been you holding the knife,  grip shaky but there.     bellamy is your knife,    unwavering,   unafraid.    enough to make hairs stand on end,   you squeeze your eyes closed and wait—    

a flaw that also brushed your skin for the first time years before, a gentle hand extended to even the darkest of wolves, as if daring for it to try and bite the only tender gesture its seen in years. beth greene was good, perfectly pious like the rows of pews beckon you home, the similar stained oak overtaking your senses like it still held God between its walls, like the church didn’t creak and crack with every movement in its old soul, as if you weren’t sure of wayward angels hiding in the attic, waiting to reveal themselves should the moment be right. because goodness and mercy followed you at every step in your life, offered you a relieve in the darkest of moments, where blessed wheat turned liquid sour, a poison to the man you call father through blood, the Father through spirit returned him to you a changed man,  pages clutched to both your chests like an anchor even now. your skin is white and unblemished, the tender flesh of God dirtied but not harmed. digits fiddle with cross resting on collarbone, as if the contact with cool metal would bring you closer, like it did not still hurt to wear in wake of the destruction of the earth; you could not still believe that there was something coming next. this was it,  there will be no salvation, the muddied paths and boarded up windows is all that was left, the rubble of your childhood home just another victim in its wake.