salty and bitter
Groggily, I rubbed my eyes, stretching my arms from the curled up position I had been in against the hospital bed. I realized, with a start, that the bed was empty. I bolted up and ran out of the door, calling for a nurse.
“Have you seen my grandfather?”
“He went out for a walk not too long ago”
Hurriedly, I searched for him, unable to find him until eventually I made my way to the rooftop.
There my grandfather stood. He held his IV drip with his left hand, to keep him upright. His left hand reached out, out of the safety of the canopy, his fingers dripping with water droplets.
I called out to him.
“Grandpa! What are you doing? I looked everywhere for you.”
He turned to me, slowly, and finally looked me in the eyes. I would never forget those eyes; usually riddled with pain and haziness from the morphine, but on that day they had a peculiar clarity.
Without withdrawing his hand, he whispered, “The rain. It feels wonderful”.
I felt a drip down my face, and a wet streak made its way to the corner of my mouth. I thought to myself, There must be a hole in the canopy.
It’s salty.
Fingers trembling, I gingerly reached up to touch my face. Tears. My tears.
“Grandpa…” A suffocating dryness clawed up my throat. “Don’t leave me Grandpa”.
His eyes softened, and he turned his body towards me. With his frail, trembling hands he wiped away my tears, clearing away the salty streaks on my face with the taste of bitter rain.
softly
He tugged me into the shadows of where the stairs lie, and rested his chin atop my head.
Wrapped his arms around mine, encasing me into his warmth.
I turned around, breathing out and attempting to look as calm as possible. I was, of course, shaking.
He tipped my chin towards his, and smiled.
He knew.
What he knew, I do not know. But he did, and far better than I.
Slowly
Brought his face closer to mine.
I froze.
Then his lips touched mine.
Stunned, dumbfounded, astounded, shocked.
They were soft, much softer than I had anticipated.
unconscious
In the midst of oppressive darkness and soundless grief, a screeching cry pierced my heart.
It was a cry that evinced bitter betrayal and scathing shock, a cry that no one else seemed to hear.
I forgot to remember that I was alone, miserably alone.
In that bleak, desolate place, I searched to no avail, to find the source of the wretched sound.
Searching desperately, to stop the continuous, insufferable wail that seemed to crush my soul.
But then I remembered.
How pathetically alone I was.
And I finally realized that such a sorrowful and broken cry...was from me.
a dilemma with myself
Sometimes I wish people would fall off like scabs. They're there when you need them but as soon as there's no use you can just flick them off.
Or even better.
Maybe they'll fall off by themselves.
Twisted, I know.
But what can I say?
I'm manipulative.
I'm sincere.
I'm mean.
I'm nice.
I'm fake.
I'm genuine.
What am I?
Who am I?
maybe someone will tell me
i'd hate to choose by myself
my heart : a glass castle
tell me no
refuse me
break me
do it.
because the longer we are together
the harder it gets to gather the remaining shards left from my heart
and every sliver I try so hard to pierce back together only leaves another empty space
and as you remain close to me
the magnificent sculpture I have constructed crumbles
but you heal me
and when you are there I am left with a sturdy glass castle that leaves no room for instability
for sadness
for any or every depressing emotion you bring out of me when you are gone
so leave
tell me no
so that I am left huddled on the ground gingerly touching the broken pieces of that sturdy glass castle that you have single-handedly raised yet crushed once again
leave me
to build my own castle
tell me no
so I may learn how to heal without you
the cycle of hell
The way you wake up is in an empty room.
There’s a single bed. No sheets. No pillows.
Only a mattress.
And for some reason, there's a rope and a mirror.
You hop off the bed and circle the room.
There’s no door.
The walls are white and sickeningly clean.
The whiteness is blinding but you can't look away, and it sears your eyes like when you lean in to close to a fire.
You stare and stare and stare until you can't take it anymore and your eyes are pulsing your pulse racing and your breath jerking up and down in a syncopation symphony.
Out of nowhere, a feral scream bubbles out of your throat and you manage to tear yourself from that wall.
How long have you been staring? An hour? A minute? Your head is too foggy to tell.
But somehow you know that its the room, those endless white walls that mock you from within.
You can't take it anymore.
In a moment of clarity, you rush to the mirror and smash it with your fist.
Showers of glass rain down on you and blood is dripping from your palm as you grasp the largest piece.
Blood leaks from your fingers as you furl your hand tightly around the glass.
You must be insane, but without hesitation you do it anyway, plunging the glass into your forearm.
You watch the blood leak from the cut and giggle, but the giggle's not yours.
Unwillingly your fingers, already smeared in blood, come down to smear the blood all over your arm.
Then you notice several other healing cuts all over your arm.
You lean on the wall and realize it still hurts to look at it.
Smack! You leave a handprint on the wall. Then several more.
You dance and dance, leaving blood-red handprints everywhere.
Eventually, you get tired and you sag on the wall, wondering what the hell just happened.
You collapse onto the floor and you notice the ropes within reach.
Again...
Your hands move on their own accord, like its a routine...or a habit.
They grab the rope and before you know it-
It's around your neck and your hands are pulling and pulling and you leak in and out of consciousness.
In a moment you look up hazily to see the wall opposite of you has the words written in crusty, dried, blood: See you next time!
And unwittingly your hands pull one last time and-
The way you wake up is in an empty room.
Crocodile Tear
A single car. That was all it took.
The day Grace died was the day my world turned black and white.
My sister. She was gone.
No more would she giggle so infectiously she had gotten an award for the best laugh.
No more would she and I whisper late into the night.
No more anything anymore.
I stopped trying.
The world stopped having color.
The world just stopped.
And every day,
I lay in bed.
One tear a day
One
tear
a
day
for
her.
She had told me one time when she was going away to camp. Such an insignificant thing, to be apart for two weeks when I was now apart from her for eternity.
"Cry one tear for me every day, okay? One crocodile tear."
And so I would.
But
a better option lay
I glanced at the
scissors
the rope
the closet.
And just like that
I was off.
To find her.
Let us play, pet.
She heard it before she saw it. The sharp sound a drawn sword makes as it is pulled out of its sheath.
She whirled around, her instincts kicking in as she raised up her daggers to be met with a clang.
She made for a jab but whirled away, spinning on her foot to stand behind her opponent. But whoever it was-they were too fast, and turned quickly, as if they sensed her intentions.
She grinned. Interesting.
Blade on blade, no other sounds but their heavy breathing and the clash of their weapons. It was a dance, a dangerous one. When she pressed, so did her opponent, and when she lept back, the dark figure sliced at her. She parried with her hunting knives, panting. The only difference was that unlike her opponent, she was panting from excitement, the thrill.
As she ducked and twirled, she decided she could not go on calling the person “opponent” anymore.
I’ll name him Lassus. Latin for tired. She snickered to herself. Appropriate.
After a few more minutes of play as she lept out of Lassus's way, and teased the way her life was close to ending, she was ready for the finale.
She smirked. You could almost taste the exhaustion of her Lassus in the air. How unfortunate that he had to die, he had been an opponent worthy of her game.
Her hunting knives paused in the air.
Well...not quite worthy.
As she paused, so did Lassus, startled by her sudden stop. She smiled slowly, a wicked, wicked thing, filled with mischief and promises of danger.
Then she attacked.
There was nothing to describe what she was.
She was simply shadow, mist, and darkness. Before Lassus could even draw his sword again, she was there. Behind him. With a swift kick, he was on the ground. She ground the heel of her boot into his back.
And for the first time, she spoke.
"Well little mouse, what should we do with you?" she purred.
She made sure to pull up her hood, noting where the moon stood and how it would hit her eyes just right.
She was a picture, cloak shrouding her body, eyes glinting silver and gold, and her hair unbound, a gleaming, mess the color of ravens.
Lassus gave no answer but a whimper.
"Get up," she whispered, a hint of promise in her voice.
Lassus looked up startled, but did nothing.
"I said get up." She did not whisper this time, and it was nothing short of a snarl.
"I-I can't."
A refusal? This night would be more enjoyable than she had imagined.
"Whyever not, my pet?"
"You-your foot."
She noticed that her foot was still on top of him, pressing down. She sniffed distastefully and removed her foot.
"Now." Obediently, he raised himself onto his knees, and as soon as his feet were steady on the ground, she ducked into his arms and tugged his face closer to hers.
She looked into his eyes, honey brown with green flecks.
Before he knew what was happening, he was dead.
She looked at her knife, covered in blood, and Lassus, whose throat was spilling all over her cloak.
He had died looking into her eyes.
And then she was gone before you could say murder.
#crime #death #murder #assasin