Empty Living Space

She was the one who showed me the marks. The impressions of fist upon skin. Her cries in the hollow midnight, against the crisp of winter, ached within my need to save. My burning, diseased need to take broken spirits, long-ago chipped and shattered, and be the mending torch to fix it. Her calls of pain and whispered torments served the mission for which my ego pleaded.

“Give me purpose,” I pleaded to God. “Bring my life to bear some meaning.” Her tears came and crashed into my bleak world, the empty cavern where my life was constructed. Her tears were nourishment to my inner hollowness I desired to fill.

I was the one that took his form, fragile and dull, and turned it to ash. I smeared his ashes upon my skin as I cried tears of hopefulness. I stomped his remains into the ground, returning him to merciful nothingness. Deep into the earthen void of soil, worms and decay.

I brought what was left of the monster, the last evidence of his existence. Instead of her, I found an empty living space, dark and cold. She was gone, no evidence of her bruises, tears and pleading cries. All was left were my own teeth, my own hands, and my own eyes.