[se] between two lungs

Deimos

we are all b r o k e n
that's how the l i g h t gets in

He would regard her for eternity if she allowed it; a thousand little nuances and sentiments wrapped and chorded, courted, aloft in her features – he wanted to know them all, the pathway to discovery and curiosity. He enjoyed the lilt of her song, curving along the bow of her lips, the audacity simmering behind her eyes, the rash, reckless embodiment of faith and ardor; tiny pieces and strands he’d never understand without her presence. The boldness kept him there, contained and content, merely to watch the plains of her face adapt and adjust to whatever he concocted and conducted, stars aligning and chasing down galaxies. Of course not she answered, and the warrior nearly rolled his eyes, juvenile, but the world, and she were complex; he’d have it no other way, the depths and truths of the allure. The beast permitted her secrets and kept his too, pondered how to unravel them all, piece by piece, strand by strand, endeavor by endeavor, the enigmas twisting and turning along his fingers, across his figure; ready, willing, eager.

Deimos knew too much of hunger and its raw, clawing sentiments; different strokes and needs, wanton desires and yearning, the hankering for things they couldn’t have, not yet, not yet. Sometimes it’d been violence, the stinging, unrelenting abandonment of thought and innocence, virtues assailed on the backs of swinging, cutting rapiers, in the length of lacerations, wounds, and shuddering, snagged, stolen breaths. Sometimes it’d been desperation, clawing and crawling across vast lands out of spite and vitriol, the stance, the predilection, consuming his being, his core, survival bleeding its way out of his new scars, his heart, his lungs. Sometimes it’d been voracious, needy lust, the rain coating his naked flesh and drowning him in its wake, a willing compatriot. Sometimes it was starlight and the sun coiling across his skin, unbidden, relished and released, a feverish pitch that would take the right ministrations, the depths and wells of patience. She lingered in there now, in between, a tease, a torment, he readily proffered, swallowed and consumed, unabashed and unafraid.

They withdrew: the right thing to do as he devoured the last annals of the smoldering, seething, thundering smoke and gun down his throat – his eyes flickering over her acceptance, over her reaction, to the magic he’d offered. It wasn’t death – the draining of life wasn’t quite magnificent, didn’t hold the same conviction or undulations; likely to be done again when vehemence and fury took over, when he had naught left to give but damnation upon his foes. He waited, wallowing in the same back and forth notions – pondering whether she would like it, if it’d been too much or too little, if it was daft and stupid, the uncertainty layered upon him so vividly and awkwardly, not used to the position of incertitude and consternation. He didn’t care for it. The soldier preferred composure, calm, stoic, and binding; not this apprehension building in his chest.

I love it echoed, chiseled its way down into his bones. “Then it is yours,” he laughed, more than one meaning contorted in those decibels and sounds, as if he intended it for anyone else, one hand ghosting along the tip of Jyoti’s tail, another folding behind him, secret and furtive, already concocting and creating something else. This one was hidden for a reason, to be exchanged later, using her distraction to mend and mold it, then slide it within a back pocket.

keep the ones who
h e a r d y o u
when you never said a word