MELITA
Tucked against his side, all she could do was stare at the lanterns adorning the wall, and then the empty space damned and doomed to be filled with others – the congregation of endless, vanquished souls. She could hear his request, and it hollowed out regions of her all over again, things she never truly closed off or away; the melodies always ever-present in her mind, like sonnets, like lullabies, like notes and stanzas she had no artistic form for, and could only recall pulsing from her sister’s entity. There weren’t enough words to describe her; and the youth thought maybe a few wouldn’t do her any good, wouldn’t entail anything and everything that had been her twin, but on a shaking breath, she tried. “Clementine was the better half – angelic and sweet, compassionate and gentle. She could sing to the birds. She could enrich the flowers. She could brush away everything with a laugh.” With generosity. With any tender nuance. With kindness and dignity, while Melita seared and simmered from corners, both plunged into an agony they weren’t sure how to face. The honeybee girl had hissed and foamed and howled; Clementine had embraced and strived and bent until she couldn’t any longer. “She was like our mother, beautiful and wise.” She fought away the tears by casting her eyes to the floor, by locking her jaw tight, by swallowing and summoning any modicum of strength into her essence. “And she still fought.” Fought to live another day, right alongside the rest of them, fought to survive, fought to prevail, fought to endure agony after agony until her poor frame broke. Incomplete, without her pair, without her sibling, without her twin; Melita had been adrift over and over again, incapable of being, becoming, both of them – still pressing herself too close to the fire.
help tonight to split its seams
Give the bruises out like gifts
Give the bruises out like gifts
