Torn Pages

[Michael]

44

weird dreamer

WITH ONE BREATH, WITH ONE FLOW

Want love because I can't love myself. Need space, but I'm tired of being alone. Crushed by the weight of this depression on my soul yet so comfortable in its embrace.

A contradiction in motion.

Truth and lie on the breeze. Rise and fall like the tide.

You see me but your blind. The fiction that I weave a cloth wrapped around your eyes. Figure if I fool you, maybe I'll fool myself.

Break me. Hate me.

They hear me when I talk but are deaf to the screams, to the whispers. My silent pleas spoke in hushed tones inside an empty, dimly lit room.

Dichotomy in a box.

Hate you, hate me but loathe the world more.

All of it's fake, yet I'm the fakest with my plastic smile and emotions practiced in the mirror. A wooden boy like Pinocchio minus the fairy and cricket for a heart.

Wanna be real in a world that I'd love to see rot.

A paradox in the plot.

One day, maybe, the line will straighten. My heart will heal.

One day.

Maybe.

I'll be real.

@noone

[Michael]

45

weird dreamer

WITH ONE BREATH, WITH ONE FLOW

Ruined a life with a few choices. Ducked left when I shoulda have gone right. Jumped instead of rolled, walked but didn't run. Small things together become a mountain I can't climb.

I'm left wondering what's on the other side.

@noone

[Michael]

48

weird dreamer

WITH ONE BREATH, WITH ONE FLOW

"I'm exhausted, Tes."

A confession whispered in the wind. The chilled breeze carries it across the blackness to the tombstone.

The one he struggles to see.

There's too much pain buried beneath. Too much love sowed in the soil and etched into the stone. His obsidian orbs drill holes into his shoes instead.

Marcelo slumped, his shoulders crumbling underneath an immense weight.

"I-I- I thought I could do this, that I'd be able to endure another loss." he bit his lip, "But I can't. The list is too damn long now." numbered in the tens, and every name written used a piece of his soul as ink for the pen.

"You were the last." The man he used to be passed with her, and what remained was an empty shell of a person.

"I tried for you, Tes, I really did. But it's all too much."

He collapsed onto his hands and knees, fingers digging into the grass. The dam in him broke, releasing a flood of tears down his cheeks and onto the ground. Marcelo heaved sharp, uneven, and panicked breaths.

His chest felt so tight.

All he wanted was for the pain to end.

For life to end. For him to end.

But he wouldn't.

Even at his lowest, he picked himself up and forced another step. Not for himself, but for the people who couldn't anymore. The ones he promised.

Until then, he'd lay there crying - struggling to breathe through the pain.

@noone

[Michael]

51

weird dreamer

WITH ONE BREATH, WITH ONE FLOW

I burned the old me trying to fit in where I didn't belong. If only I'd known you can't rebuild from ashes.

@noone

[Michael]

??

weird dreamer

WITH ONE BREATH, WITH ONE FLOW

NINE YEARS AGO

Quivering, Kaiden tucked his legs under his arms. He held them tightly, desperately, as if they anchored him to the world. Life is cruel. Some part of him knew that already, but until now - on this terrible, horrendous, contemptible day. It was a far off truth.

He drew in several sharp breaths. The air cut like glass against a growing pressure in his chest. "S-s-she's gone," Kaiden whispered, heart in his throat. She was gone, and now he was all alone. What an impossibly crushing thought. One that gripped his body with clawed hands and dragged him down into the darkness.

He trembled.

Would they come for him next? His hiding spot wasn't original, but the closet is where his mind went when they busted through the door. It worked so well during hide-and-seek

A game mom always won.

That she'd never win again.

@noone

[Michael]

??

weird dreamer

WITH ONE BREATH, WITH ONE FLOW

Kaiden swallowed, rage interlacing with self-disgust on its way down his throat. Every fiber of his being screamed for him to act. To conjure his blade and rend the leather-faced bastard in two. But he didn't. He couldn't. Not while Duhamel held Kaiden's heart in his hands. Slags, if only he'd seen through Duhamel's scheme sooner. He would have gotten here faster and maybe been able to save more people. Stop Duhamel from - Kaiden shook his head. No. He couldn't think about what-ifs right now.

"If you hurt her Duhamel, I swear I'll - "

"Yes, yes. You can forgo the threats, boy. We both know they're meaningless now. " the man interjected, "You played a good game, little dragon. I will give you that." Duhamel smiled, "But love is a weakness, not a treasure in these games of gods and men."

Duhamel descended the ballroom stairs, stepping over the shattered remains of crystalized corpses. The sound of what was once people crunching beneath boot made Kaiden twitch.

@noone

[Michael]

52

weird dreamer

WITH ONE BREATH, WITH ONE FLOW

Where do the tears go when the well runs dry? When you're too exhausted for waterworks, but the pain persists. All that's left is the dry heave and your silent scream.

Where does the light go once swallowed by the void? That bright flame snuffed out by a sickening cold you can't escape. Feel it nipping at your skin, draining color and warmth from the world.

@noone