05-06-2019, 11:54 PM
VulgariS
" i could be ugly in loving you. filthy and soft-mouthed. wolf-tongued and terrible.
i could carry my heart in my mouth like a bird dog to you, so gently i wouldn’t leave a mark. "
i could carry my heart in my mouth like a bird dog to you, so gently i wouldn’t leave a mark. "
Does he remember being a child, being soft and gentle the way his mother hoped he would be? Can he still pronounce the name of the soft animal of his heart or is the memory gone entirely? When he met her, he thought maybe everything before was just a dream. Maybe he was just walking through illusions and biding his time until the world gave her to him – gave him to her. Her name felt like fresh magnolia petals sweeping over his lips every time he said it but she tasted like a monstrous desire. The night they met, he swore he’d devour the earth’s core if it meant getting even the scraps of her love.
And so he was punished.
And so he was torn in two, an animal with its foot in a trap and a raw-skinned heart each clawing each other apart.
He let an entire war hollow him out from the inside until she dipped her fingers between his ribs and pieced him back together the way only she could. Queen of his life, he loved her enough to stay even when the skeletons in his closet all rattled their jaws in Morse code: get out. leave. run. Vulgaris knew there was nowhere left to run and the singularity of her love had come to crush him. And he said please, he said thank you.
Just as quickly as they fell in love all over again, though, she burned like a forest fire and came back a new shade of red that couldn’t love him up close. Her tender touches and promises of love were all dried up, the way they should have been the first time he fucked up, and it left him bleeding out onto the floor. His bones call out for hers and drive him from Loess, to where ever someone mentioned a woman red like everything he ever wanted in this world. His lungs burn from ceaseless running (toward her, for once) but he doesn’t allow himself to admit the way it hurts. Nevermind the way his legs feel like they may wear down into dust. Nothing matters except just seeing her again.
Tephra isn’t an allied kingdom and he really shouldn’t come barging in after threatening to unleash war on all of Beqanna. But her scent is a siren call and he just keeps running until he sees her standing, alone and bright like a newborn sun. Maybe he shouldn’t touch her and maybe she’ll be disgusted by the feeling of his scales against her holy skin but thoughts cost too much energy right now. His body just seeks out its favorite roost and he presses his side to hers, chest heaving for breath with a mouth like a desert.
He presses his face to her neck and curls tighter against her, closes his eyes tries to ignore that they are not home. Just feeling her body next to his like this breathes life back into the oasis of his heart. The smell of her hair makes the verdant fields of him flourish and bloom, all for her. Part of him wonders if she knows he would still move mountains if she only asked, he would tear them down into the sea and rebuild them in her image so the world could know what it’s like to love her.
“Please just pretend we’re still in love,” he says as he begins to catch his breath. “Give me one more day where I deserve your love and we’re together.”
He keeps his eyes closed, tries to imagine that they’re in Loess and their children are playing in the distance. He imagines she’s happy and smiling at him the way she did just weeks ago. He imagines everything doesn’t hurt.