We have highs and we have lows

KIADA

your battleworn tongue doesn't say the truth;

that you are ruined

It overwhelms, devours, swallows everything whole. But he’d asked for it – she tells herself over and over and over again. He wants to experience it, to find out what it’s like in her heart, why she had been so guarded for so long, kept to herself and kept together with the smallest and barest bits of herself on display. She doesn’t know how long she’s sitting there in his lap, sending her emotions down, expressing them in the tears that stream down her face, in the tremble in her body as she clings to him as if he’s the last thing she has left.

She can tell, too, that he’s processing it, working through it. And she tries to damper it once it’s crested, pulling it back within herself when his words reach her – the breath heaving from his chest as she buries her face into his shoulder, keeping lose and using him as a tether to steady herself within the turbulent waves of her emotions.

Arms move to wrap around his torso, keeping him close as possible. It takes her some time to get the words out, but she manages, swallowing down the tight hoarseness in her throat, as she pulls her face away from his chest – red ringed eyes focusing on him entirely. “We’re here.” She agrees quietly, softly, unsure if he can even hear her, so she sends it again through the bond – along with the sense of an apology.

and you wonder why he lets you,

the butcher

touch him

the sun