Hurt so Good

D e i m o s

Send a heartbeat to the void that cries through you
Relive the pictures that have come to pass

Battles done quietly – he’d never experienced that either. Rebellion was a hushed platitude, but thereafter, when the actions demanded rebuttal, when their cloak and daggers had manifested exactly what they craved, naught about their tactics or warfare had been orchestrated in a subtle irreverence. There’d been blood and fire and ash and death – war cries and drums he could still hear in his dreams, cinders and embers spread through their palms, swords an extension of their arms, their limbs, their every waking breath and moment, before dust settled. Even then, with pleas for mercy, with the dying begging for absolution, with the wounded’s words pulsing and pervading, with the screech of victory behind blood-stained teeth, with the shouts for retreat – no, there’d never been anything soundless. The world quaked and shook, and knew exactly who they were in those moments, when they lost their homes, when they lost their legacies, when they lost pieces of themselves (the ocean breaking over cliffs, endless fog, glassy vestiges, decadent moons). He listened but didn’t provide anything else, patting at the catapult one last time before returning to the fallen soldiers, plucking at the ones still somewhat hole, rearranging their stances, and then dragging the rest of the fallen to the sidelines, doomed and damned to be repaired again. No ivory tents here, no medics stitching them back upon, but the concept still the same; they just didn’t breathe or inhabit thought. At Jigano’s final suggestion, he brandished a laugh, finally clambering away from the murkier depths, from the platitudes strung together behind his ribs and over his heart; traces and foundations that made him who he was, even if they were filled to the brim with ghosts. The image alone of flowers or their petal-ed crowns flung into onlookers and passerbys with enough force to break them all apart had its merit, and was now half-tempted to mention it to Amalia as part of some challenge again (to see how many they could take out this year). He shrugged again, guiding the flailing warriors back to repair work. “As long as it is useful.” For now we stand alone, the world is lost and blown And we are flesh and blood disintegrate with no more to hate