i nearly killed somebody; topsail

[Elektrum]

He did not think of her again.

He left, and he did not remember the way that her eyes shone with wonder, or the way the grass clung to her body like a starving glutton. He did not wonder. He did not imagine the slopes of her hips growing out of straight lines, because the geometry of her body never occurred to him. He did not think of her again. He did not think of seconds as they passed. He arranged the planets in order of his preference, but he did not think about the way the galaxies spoke out in the fractures of her eyes. And he turned hourglasses on end, and did not once wonder about her in the moments between the grains of sand that fell.

He thought about himself, instead. He thought of all the ways that they ruined him. He thought of all the ways that they ruined each other. He watched the moments that they betrayed one another on loop, over and over, until he spoke the sentences in lieu of theirs. He watched the moments that they disintegrated, again and again, until they were all that was left.

But he did not think of her again.

He does not remember her name, or the way that her youth betrayed her in the back of her throat; how her voice became more petulant than she should have wanted, how the inflection rose at the ends of her sentence and left his hair on end. He doesn’t remember the way she said his name, or the way she watched him like he was all that mattered.

He did not think of her again.

But then, in the meadow, between moments and atoms and planets, he sees her.

“Don’t lie,” he says, and there’s a curl in his voice at the end of each word that might make her wonder.

“You’ve waited years for this.” He doesn’t wonder if she’s grown into the being he’s created out of stars, in the stars, for the stars. She’s waited years for this.

He has not

ELEKTRUM

how time twines around your neck,

[Topsail]

steady as a preacher, free as a weed…
--couldn‘t wait to get goin‘ but wasn‘t quite ready to leave

She remembered everything.

She remembered the impossible way his skin looked like molten silver. She remembered the bitter taste of stardust and the way the sun burned her clear down to the marrow of her bones. Her days since then had subsequently been centered around the memories of the impossibilities. It was all she could think about, dream about, wonder about. To come so close and then be robbed, well it was just a fate she could not accept. Days without him crept by painfully slow. She had tried to distract herself with kingdom duties, but they were so pale in comparison to the stars. She was, after all, not made for the mundane of a day-to-day life. She craved that which she could not have and certainly did not need.

She didn’t need him, but she wanted him. She craved him like a drunk craving that last sip, a junkie burning for that last score. He had ruined her and she hated him for it, though the hate wasn’t strong enough to keep her from seeking him out. It wasn’t often that she thought herself weak, but there was just something about the metallic of his skin that pulled her in. He was gravity and she was helpless to fight it.

“You don’t remember my name. You don’t remember the name of the child you threw into the stars. How shameful of you. ” she said, her voice smooth. Surely he would wonder how she knew that bit of information, but for now she didn’t feel inclined to tell him. Instead she followed his lead and returned the half smile, stepping forward to close the gap between them. She was no longer a child he could blind with the stars and everything beyond. “I never lie, that‘s your forte. Its true, I‘ve waited. And I would gladly wait years more for something I wanted.” With another smile she gave herself over to recklessness, reaching across the gap to touch his smooth silver shoulder with her own dark muzzle.

topsail