A/N: So this piece is a thinly-veiled fanfic that I submitted to a writing contest. I used a different quote in my actual submission, but the main text is the same. The theme of the contest is "Beautiful Ruins," so obviously the first thing I thought of was Carmilla. This is kinda what I imagine her inner thoughts about her and Laura's relationship to be like.
Out of everything, i tried to hide the parts of me that hurt, that were sour to kiss, that smelled like a loss of innocence.
you said, "i love you" and i knew you couldn't mean it.
if you had seen all of me - then you'd know, then you'd see.
- r.i.d.
It's happened so fast; your ribs still ache from the aftermath. Only a few weeks since everything fell apart and knit itself back together. Only a few weeks since her lips finally touched yours, and everything felt right, so right.
She touches you now, everywhere, constantly, her fingers lingering on your bare skin, her hand in yours. And you feel blessed. And you feel unworthy. Her fingertips brush against your neck, your wrists, and you expect them to come away sticky with the residue of your discretions. The violence that streaks your skin, so thick it must be visible.
You don't deserve her. You'll never deserve her. She is purity and totality, the velvet of the night sky sprinkled with stars, limitless. You are nothing, worth less than a grain of sand on her vast shore.
Yet she loves you, somehow. How?
You've been down the path of destruction too many times to remain unscathed, but she still looks at you like you're a temple, erected holy and whole. If only she saw the empty space inside, the crumbled altar on which your heart rests, stale and dull, dripping pale. But that altar, that temple, is dedicated to her. You don't deserve her, but she deserves all you can give to her. All of you; more. More than you could ever hold.
Why you? Why you? You cannot even say you are nothing. You have seen too much, collected too many moments to truly be nothing. You are history, but not the kind they teach, not the kind remembered. You are hidden pain, the tale of the defeated crushed in the dust of the victor. You are victim encapsulated.
Your existence is shaped by destruction. You hold violence in your mouth, yet still she kisses you, takes the blood from your tongue, touches the sharp points of your sin with devotion instead of fear. Creation amidst the ruin. Is it possible to mold yourself to her frame?
Your lungs are bare beneath your ribs, and between them your heart does not beat, but still it aches to be worthy.
How? She tells you you're beautiful. You are not beautiful. You have beauty, yes, physical charm, but you are not beautiful. To be beautiful requires something you have long since lost. A dark, soothing center already cracked open to the harsh light of the world. She is not yet broken; the bitterness has not seeped beneath her skin.
You want to crawl into her love, into the warm cave of her heart, let the gentle dusk surround and hide you. She would let you in. She would welcome you there. And you would hold her beauty to your breast, cradling it like the precious gift it is. You know it's selfish; you're not doing it for her… But fuck that. Of course you're doing it for her. You do it all for her.
For years you had been able to ignore your true actions, reflection of your nature, push them to the back of your mind. The wounds, scars stretched tight across your belly, memories trapped beneath your skin, writhing. But then she arrived, and you could no longer abide it. You could not stand to the side, marble stone.
It had to stop; and so it did.
But what is left now?
Still always forever you are a hollow, disguised by blood and brittle teeth. Forever… No, don't think about eternity. The pain is enough now without dwelling on that blinding chasm.
Time; time. You contain too much time. No may be's, but too many formers. The white light of your past, the blinding horror that you were, that you are, that you always will be, shining through the cracks in your skin. There is no escaping. No way to fill the blank.
But maybe in her. Possibility. She does not see your lack. She looks at you as if you are not merely the shell of a once-human life.
In her there is belief. Desire. Love. She touches you tender, she touches you whole.
You don't deserve her. But you need her. All that she is is all that you have lost. How can you be without now that you have found again?
And she loves you. Love. When was the last time you loved, had been loved? You remember. It is too long ago, and yet only yesterday. But she is nothing like the last. She is deep, dark. Trusting. God, and you trust her.
Beloved. Beloving.
Her fingers are light on your back, and yours are soft at her throat, and she is the world, and you are in the world, and you are in each other, and it is enough. It could be enough.
You will never be complete; you know this. There is too much missing to ever be replaced. But with her, there is a start.
Her body next to yours. She whispers into you, and you feel the chasm of your chest fill. Beautiful. Yes. Perhaps for her, with her, you can be.
You will ruin her. She has already ruined you.