04-30-2021, 12:25 PM
kensley
i swore the days were over of courting empty dreams
Still he wanders, even with a place to call home.
Because the only thing he inherited from his father was that itching restlessness.
It is the Meadow he returns to without fail.
Alive. With a heart beating in his chest and breath festering in his lungs.
And something else, too.
The fog does not love him like it had loved the son. It tangles itself in his hair. It haunts him like so many other things. He does not try to bend it to his will because he understands that it does not truly belong to him. It follows him but it is not his.
Just as the heart is not his.
(It is, but it does not feel it anymore. It aches after so many years of laying waste in the cage of his ribs. Useless. Still. Silent. Frozen.)
Just as the lungs are not his.
(They are, but they too had spent so many years atrophying.)
And there is something else, too. Something beyond the fog that draws its spiny fingers through the tangles of his mane. (He can hear them as he passes by, their thoughts seeping into the mud of his mind without invitation no matter how he tries to push them out.)
He draws in a shuddering breath and the ribs smart with decay, even still. Certainly the bones had splintered, dead, rotting. How terribly it had hurt to be put back together, to be reanimated. How horribly frightening it had been.
He wanders and the knees cry out in protest now but there is some small joy to be found in this because he is alive again. He is real and the pain is a reminder of all the things he has done wrong.
A flash of white catches his eye in this brilliant light and he remembers a meeting of ghosts so long ago, the soft kindness of friends and he smiles just barely as he makes his way toward her. “Agetta,” he calls out to her, the warmth returned to his voice. It had been missing the last time he’d seen her. “It’s good to see you.” And he means it this time.
Because the only thing he inherited from his father was that itching restlessness.
It is the Meadow he returns to without fail.
Alive. With a heart beating in his chest and breath festering in his lungs.
And something else, too.
The fog does not love him like it had loved the son. It tangles itself in his hair. It haunts him like so many other things. He does not try to bend it to his will because he understands that it does not truly belong to him. It follows him but it is not his.
Just as the heart is not his.
(It is, but it does not feel it anymore. It aches after so many years of laying waste in the cage of his ribs. Useless. Still. Silent. Frozen.)
Just as the lungs are not his.
(They are, but they too had spent so many years atrophying.)
And there is something else, too. Something beyond the fog that draws its spiny fingers through the tangles of his mane. (He can hear them as he passes by, their thoughts seeping into the mud of his mind without invitation no matter how he tries to push them out.)
He draws in a shuddering breath and the ribs smart with decay, even still. Certainly the bones had splintered, dead, rotting. How terribly it had hurt to be put back together, to be reanimated. How horribly frightening it had been.
He wanders and the knees cry out in protest now but there is some small joy to be found in this because he is alive again. He is real and the pain is a reminder of all the things he has done wrong.
A flash of white catches his eye in this brilliant light and he remembers a meeting of ghosts so long ago, the soft kindness of friends and he smiles just barely as he makes his way toward her. “Agetta,” he calls out to her, the warmth returned to his voice. It had been missing the last time he’d seen her. “It’s good to see you.” And he means it this time.
i worshipped at the altar of losing everything
@[Agetta]