cold and broken
But I've seen your flag on the marble arch
And love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken
Hallelujah
~Jeff Buckley; Hallelujah~
He sees her every night, at the blackest hour when the night terrors roam free and darkness extends tendrils of horror across slumbering bodies.
He sees the flames surrounding her in a flickering halo, her frightened eyes, the tears turning to steam almost as soon as they were shed.
He hears her desperate pleas for him to leave, to run away and save himself, her screams of agony.
He tastes the metallic of smoke on his tongue, the salt from his own tears, the lingering of mint from their last kiss.
He feels the pain of leaving her behind, the pain of flames licking at his bare skin, the soft caress of black smoke.
He smells the smoke that pools around them, the fear wafting from her body, the far away, familiar rosemary scent of her shampoo.
He remembers how it felt to leave her behind, to run and run until the sunlight washed over him as he collapsed onto the grass, the bolt of agony that shot through him when the house collapsed like cards into a pile of nothing more but twisted, smoking rubble.
He understands the true pain of losing a love to an untimely death, the sense of it being his fault that he can never shake, the sting of the burns nothing to the agony of his breaking heart.
He knows everything about her, the beautiful girl dancing through his mind every day, the woman portrayed most often in his photo albums.
The sweetness of her smile is still often on his mind, the bright waves tumbling down her back, the glint in her eye and the laugh like bells that made the whole world want to laugh along.
Her scathing wit, her barbed insults and her infrequent confessions of her true feelings echo through his mind, with her whispered words in all the languages she knew jarring his body.
The figurine to mark her grave is an angel with a serene smile and spread wings. It could not be further from how she really was, a scathing, sarcastic snake with biting wit and a curse never far from her lips.
"It's been a while, Tadpole," he murmurs, laying a sunflower neatly onto the moist soil.
She dances in front of him, taunting him with hazel eyes he'll never see again, freckled skin he'll never caress again, pink lips he'll never draw groans and whispered i love yous from again.
"They keep telling me to forget," he confides, leaning against the angel's feet and imagining the face of his dead mother gazing down at him with sweet understanding and compassion. "But I don't know how. I can't forget you."
He waits for a response, but no sounds come but for the rustlings of russet leaves as a breeze swirls through them. He lays a hand atop the inscription at the base of the statue, tracing the words worn by two years of wind, rain and snow, ivy beginning to stretch destructive fingers over it.
Lily Luna Potter
January 2008 to March 2029
Taken too young, loved by all, forgotten by none.
"I still love you," he whispers, tears falling on the marble plinth, leaving their stains there forevermore. "I promise, I will always love you. I'll never forget you, Tadpole."
He leaves, a boy with broken dreams and tear-filled eyes, trying to hold together a broken heart. The sunflower remains on the soil and the air remains silent.
No matter how much he plays pretend, she's gone.
And she's never coming back.
Gah, I don't know why everything I write lately is so angsty. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed this.
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