MELITA
Melita might have been doing the same – bags packed, worldly possessions put into one thing or another, promises set aside, chin raised, defiant against whatever the realm decided to hang upon her next – except she wasn’t. Instead she stared at the memorial wall for what seemed like minutes on end, eyes tracing over the patterns of lanterns and images of those that had left them behind. A simple pondering, a mystic wondering, if Clementine’s light should come with her, upon decks, out at sea, if the earthly desires and yearnings for family had simply died and perished here too.
Then she moved, turning away from the flickering flames, adjusting the feral sigh threatening to sit and seethe in her chest, roaming, roaming, roaming, an endless paradigm of wandering, of shifting, of trying to be better when she simply could not. Down the hall, following familiar fault lines and thresholds, thinking of going to her room and piecing together portions so the packing wouldn’t be so ridiculous in the end. Except her stare trace over an assemblage of satchels outside one particular door.
She thought to sneer, to narrow her eyes at the ghostly contortions and will them to leave on her own. Except she hadn’t needed to, and upon glancing along the open aperture, there was the pale figure, the wraith of the bar, sunken upon the bed. The youth was half-tempted to simply continue, winding along the intervals, ignore the woman entirely, flicker her embers elsewhere. Except she heaved a sigh, and addressed, shaking her head all the while, the wild ringlets bounding across shoulders, down her back, as rapacious and kindled as their beholder. “Did he toss you aside too?” Because it was a typical Sunjata maneuver; familiar, and patterned.
help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts
Give the bruises out like gifts
