are you still the same soul

Jude

I'll breathe you in like smoke in the backyard light
We used to laugh til we choked, into the wasted nights

Nothing feels like it matters when he sees her face again as her head rises at his voice. Straying hearts, broken relationships, hurt and vitriol - they all feel so childish when held against the looming shadow of loss. Maybe that's why he drags her in so hard when she doesn't immediately recoil. He didn't lose her. He lost his dad, but not her too. It chokes him so swiftly his lungs burn and his sobbing exhale is croaky and painful next to her ear as his hands bleed ivory with the strength he uses to cling to her.

Crying this time feels more healing than it had in Koa's arms, where the glaring sun and bleached bone had set fitting backdrops to the agony of his acceptance of the reality of his loss. It doesn't really go away, but the relief of having someone returned alive balances the scales to weep with relief and the unraveling threads of fear that had choked him for so long that this day might never come to pass.

He doesn't know how long they sit there crying, two bony skeletons housing dimmed stars in their chests. Just knows he can't - won't - bother trying to speak until the tears have been wrung out. The words won't come otherwise. When they do they're raspy from abuse and the silence he's lived in since seeing Koa, slightly different than she might remember due to the passage of time and the aging it brings. Pulling away, he pushes her mussed-up hair aside to better see her face without considering the natural way it comes to him or what he's supposed to feel. "You're alive. Gods. I'm so - I'm so glad you're alive." He isn't sure if he can say he missed her yet. Is he allowed to? The reality is setting in now as his heart slows, and Jude isn't sure what they're 'allowed' to do. He just knows she's a cornerstone his heart has been built upon, and he can't stop feeling certain things, even if society might declare he avoid expressing them.

It was the best time of my life, but now I sleep alone
So please don't wake me up, 'cause my thrill is gone