DEIMOS
ache first, but then let the cuts close
spit out the blood
spit out the blood
He didn’t want to let the emotion out. He didn’t want the tides to rule him, to piece together his entire being. He didn’t want to be defined by the pain, by the onslaughts; but they still curved and carved there, deep in the recesses. They occupied far more now than those figments of happiness had – so fleeting, so swift, so tender, and then gone; obliterated in the semblance of abandonment, in the untying of vows. So he shook his head in her hands, a stubborn denial. “But then I get hurt again.” The monolith had done this before – opened as much as he could, peering between the cracks, permitting others over the fortress walls, thinking, believing, trusting. It was as much fighting himself into the vestiges, as the others seeking to peer their way in.
And then he still wasn’t enough.
Deimos could think of hundreds of things to apologize for. But her denial was swift and keen, and he was too tired, too mentally done-in, to argue the point. If he’d done nothing but his best, why did so many leave? Why did he not matter? What made him less then so many others? Strong and stalwart and determined on days where he wasn’t bent and broken and eroding – persevering, tenacious, and steel-forged, aiming, intending, to protect and to shield.
Before he could even begin to muster an answer, the next came rolling in, at which he only grimaced, as if the words were a blasphemy. “A vacation?” The last one he’d taken, or tried to, had been his honeymoon. Where the world had still caught up with them – getting information about the Order, Amalia nearly drowning, Amalia shutting him out, fighting a damned sea panther, coming home to discover Kiada had died. Maybe he should’ve seen the signs then. Maybe he should’ve known they were breaking, and he’d been the only one trying to stitch them back together, not seeing, not knowing, where the strands were unfurling.
The responsibility, the duty, he’d instilled here immediately nagged and sank into his shoulders. Maybe he would get hives at the thought of taking any time off at all – because it was a difficult notion to fathom, to swallow down, to contemplate. His brows furrowed, not wanting to immediately deny, but she’d know, in the subtle hints that he yearned to retreat, and tighten his spine. Work was a way to escape the stretch of where he was now. A way of avoidance. A way of veering off from the things that maimed the most.
And then he still wasn’t enough.
Deimos could think of hundreds of things to apologize for. But her denial was swift and keen, and he was too tired, too mentally done-in, to argue the point. If he’d done nothing but his best, why did so many leave? Why did he not matter? What made him less then so many others? Strong and stalwart and determined on days where he wasn’t bent and broken and eroding – persevering, tenacious, and steel-forged, aiming, intending, to protect and to shield.
Before he could even begin to muster an answer, the next came rolling in, at which he only grimaced, as if the words were a blasphemy. “A vacation?” The last one he’d taken, or tried to, had been his honeymoon. Where the world had still caught up with them – getting information about the Order, Amalia nearly drowning, Amalia shutting him out, fighting a damned sea panther, coming home to discover Kiada had died. Maybe he should’ve seen the signs then. Maybe he should’ve known they were breaking, and he’d been the only one trying to stitch them back together, not seeing, not knowing, where the strands were unfurling.
The responsibility, the duty, he’d instilled here immediately nagged and sank into his shoulders. Maybe he would get hives at the thought of taking any time off at all – because it was a difficult notion to fathom, to swallow down, to contemplate. His brows furrowed, not wanting to immediately deny, but she’d know, in the subtle hints that he yearned to retreat, and tighten his spine. Work was a way to escape the stretch of where he was now. A way of avoidance. A way of veering off from the things that maimed the most.
watch your body pull itself back together
then let your soul do the same
then let your soul do the same
