We sat silent as eavesdroppers, staring at our respective pieces of floor, words used up, hopeless, struggling, and defeated. Every few seconds, I felt him look up at the hair hanging over my face. I wanted to tell him to run, but my self control was gone. Were I a good person, I would have refused to see him ages ago. I never wanted to hate him. Now I can't stop destroying him.
"This isn't over," he said, "I can't let it be. You're fucked up, ok.
"I don't hate you, though."
"Yeah? Then you're an idiot."' I'm whispering. I am not the one speaking. These are words honed over the miles of relationships that brought me to this, made me this machine, watching myself ruin him. He won't believe me - everyone thinks they're too strong. Even that, though, when I try to warn him, has become part of the war, a feint to my advantage. I let him think I'm still human, that he can still save me and himself and I draw him in even further. This is so wrong it's beyond description. It's a hell with families eating each others' flesh where we rape each other again and again and there is no death, only the eternally crescendoing din of pain.
Now he's angry. Again, he won't break the chains of my prophesy. "You don't know what the hell you're talking about. You don't know me. You don't have to defend me, ok? I'm not going to let you 'break' me - you should know that by now." His hands on his knees, shaking, red-eyed.
I want to explode. Not in fury, but in protest, out of mercy. I need a self-destruct mechanism. I try to think up words to send him away, but the demon that possesed me and turned me cold has my tongue and I can't stop that voice, not mine, coming out of my throat. "Look.. I still love you. But I don't expect you to love me - you'd be crazy if you did. All I'm saying is that I'm not asking for anything. Whatever you want to do. I'm not asking you to do anything."
Wet-eyed as he moves to his knees and takes my hand in his, sweaty and still fluttering. I want to vomit. The sick dizzy falling feeling rings in my ears as I begin to stroke his fingers, hang my head again, the battered innocent child he wants to rescue. That's the bait. He thinks I don't want to do this.
Choking on his unknowably dangerous unspent tears (blood in the water), he coos to me, "I still love you, too. You hurt me. But.." His voice cracks. No clue. No idea.
If I could be anywhere right now, I would be racing a brokedown car along the cliff at the end of the world, suicidally hugging its toothy silhouette, edge crumbling beneath when I misjudged, but ever keeping enough weight on solid ground to hold me to the earth. I would look out into the sky and be proud not to possess it. I'd listen to crackling dusty radio stations, songs I'd never heard, without titles, and let the truth of being temporary soak into me. Without fuel, the hate would just smolder, me losing my mind. My laughter would scare no one, not even birds. Nothing living would be anywhere in sight. It's all I've ever wanted.
His hand against my cheek. Now even I'm victim to my deceit - trying to stop myself crying (coffin nail) makes me shudder more until the saline glides unassailably toward his hand, burns his skin, poisons him. I close my eyes. If nothing else, iI will not watch. His wet lips press mine once, we slide to the sides, mouths to ears.
"I'm so sorry," and I'm letting my voice be hoarse, destroyed, an abused urchin. He squeezes all his power into me, arms strong with the need to be needed.
I can't feel a thing but the gut-churning vibration of the evil me inside howling with laughter. |
