I'm wasted, losing time; I'm a foolish, fragile spine
I want all that is not mine; I want him but we're not right
Over the years, Adaline had learned that time had sharp teeth, and while she was not built to withstand the razor edge of it, she had somehow survived. Pain had burrowed into her heart, but had not mutilated it. Agony had dug into her veins, but had not poisoned them. Instead, she had simply turned inward, lashes fluttering down to cover the raw pinkness of her gaze, the corners of her sweet mouth falling in the corners. She had withdrawn to the shadows where she did not have to witness the stares; she had wrapped herself in the intimacy of her own company where she did not have to think about the fragile spine of her brother—or the sound of glass splintering on cold ground.
She is not sure what about today draws her forth except that it does.
Her step is the quick, practiced pace of someone who does not want to be seen—the dance of prey. Her wings are drawn up around her, a foolish ploy for warmth although she, more than anyone, knows that it is futile. The edges remain tattered and while age has lengthened her limbs and brought a womanly grace to her curves, it has done little to bring substance to her foolish body. She remains as frail as the day that her dead mother had dropped her next to her twin on the damp meadow grass.
Her skin shifts like water over the muscles, showing the play of flesh and tendons as they swim under the surface. Some may have found alien beauty in the strangeness of it, but she did not find them often. She was, instead, more used to the disgust—the fear. They may think that they hid the immediate revulsion, but she was too attuned to miss it, and it was not something that got easier with time. The cuts were tiny, but they were infinite, and she often wondered how she had not bled out from them all.
Alas, that is neither here nor there. She does not dwell on it, does not allow herself to, and instead walks quietly around the border, her pink nose dragging along the ground where mulch gathered. The meadow was quiet in the early washes of day, but she finds that she did not mind. Isolation was not as painful as she had once feared it might be; she had become accustomed to the cocoon of silence. Her gaze quickly flicks upward to take in the land before it drops, and relief floods her heart when are was no souls before her. At least for a moment, she will not have to imagine his face on every body that passes her by. For now, she will not have to die a thousand deaths reliving his one.
in the darkness, I will meet my creators
and they will all agree that I'm a suffocator