Touched by Shadow

There's more to this then you're telling me. There always is and I can't believe you still think I'll give in and let it go. There's more to why you're covered in sticky, shimmering blood. Blood that looks so much like my own and I wonder where you got it. If it's yours or mine or some innocents', as anything else is impossible, the splintering light in my hands proves it.

Left foot forward.

Right foot forward.

Swing my arms to keep my balance, screw the knives, there's nothing left to kill anyways. Well, maybe the hurt, betrayal's a large pill to swallow after all. It would be good if I could just mash this feeling into some peanut butter and take it that way, but this is like swallowing a horse pill dry. I'm not sure I can do it.

Stagger slightly, good thing that wall was there. There's a stain leaking through the sleeve where my shoulder bashed up against the broken concrete. Sharp, lancing heat races down to my fingertips as I feel them suddenly go cold and I know that's a bad sign. I did something stupid jumping in front of you like that. Maybe I should have let you take the hit. To let you who's older, 'wiser' and stronger than myself suffer alone, but your icy eyes caught mine and at the last second I jumped. I couldn't help myself. Even if your mouth pleaded 'no' your eyes were begging me to save you, to be the one you remembered and even if I can't, if I don't know how or even want to, somewhere he reacted and I moved.

It's disconcerting, being two minds and hearts and souls trapped in one body. We're so similar yet so, so different. I know you love him, maybe even feel a lighter form of that emotion for me as well, but I'm not really the one you see, and it irks me to an extent I didn't think possible. I'm not saying I want to be the only one you're seeing when you look at this body--I'm not even saying I love you. I'm saying I don't want to care. But I can't seem to stop it. To stop the rapid beating of my heart when you pull yourself to my side. To remember to breathe when those red-tinged fingers brush the ebony hair from my crimson eyes and leave bloody trails down my eyelids and cheeks and lips.

Heart rate skyrocketing, sweating so much I feel like I'm drowning, breath so shallow I might pass out at any moment…that's when you decide to kiss me? You've got to be kidding me! I want to struggle, to throw you to the ground and run for all I'm worth. To say to hell with it all and go back to my normal life with my normal problems, but the memories swim sulkily below the surface of my consciousness and I wonder if this is a chicken and the egg type of situation.

Does the man love me because of who I use to be?

Or because of who I am and will become?

Does it matter? Probably not as much as I wish it did and as he thrusts his tongue into my mouth and my legs give way, the two of us make a sorry sight crumpled together on the warehouse floor, vermilion colored skin and clothes, bodies pressed flush together as we do the only thing we can…we give in to the past and the present and the future and we just are. For this moment in time we are just us, two sides of the same coin, light and shadow and truth and lies.

For now that's enough.

For now.

Fin.