(he takes your hand

and all you want to do is

pull away, kicking and screaming,

as he wrestles you into the light)

the winter wind whips around

the car you sit in.

it's raining and the drops

run

and

run

and

run

down the windscreen.

your hands are resting on the wheel

curled into fists, red raw and bleeding,

you want to close your eyes

and scream,

but instead you stare through

the rain

(falling

falling)

and you wonder how you got here

you were supposed to be above

such fickle matters as love

and yet here you are in the burning rain

waiting for a lover.

part i:

she watches him from afar.

he's her subject, studied and noted and she has formed her plan, put it into motion.

she will teach him what it means to cross her, pull him apart and smile in the ruins.

she enjoys pain and she will enjoy his.

he will be here in half an hour. she practices the accent once more, perfects the lie, takes her place at the canvas.

her hands itch for the paint, but not the muted dark colours of the canvas she's sitting before.

no, she craves something else, something more - though she cannot say what.

he'll be here soon. she smiles to herself. he will burn and she will show him and others like him what it means to ruin her carefully laid plans.

part ii:

he's shorter than she thought he would be, caught in her embrace, ribs to ribs, up against the wall, listening to him breathe.

it's like the flutter of a butterfly's wing, trapped in his chest, one beat after another.

he kisses her and for a moment (a moment, mind) she forgets all about why she's here, with lies spilling out her mouth just as easily as the brush of a butterfly's wing against his chest.

she doesn't forget for long. it's like a battle even though he doesn't know it, her intellect against his, always needing to assert control. she has to remember why she's here or else it will go somewhere she most certainly cannot reach.

she wants to paint once again, longs for the brush in her hand.

maybe she'll paint him.

she nearly laughs at that.

part iii:

lazy morning, light slanting through the window, cool air and early morning smiles.

he's asleep and she is not, tangled in the sheets. she seems to have found a fascination in watching him breathe. maybe it's the ease in which she could end this now, a flick of the wrist, and he'd be gone in the morning grey sunshine.

but, strangely, she would be adverse to the idea.

he will wake soon and she'll slip back easily into the lie she has lived for far too long already.

sometimes, she entertains the possibility of staying.

the thought is always fleeting and she dismisses it instantly every time but the frequency of these lapses are beginning to alarm her.

there's a broken window in the backroom. he asked her about it and she lied (not that she has ever spoken a truth to him), a fist through glass is unsatisfying when there's not blood she's found, but the shattered glass around her had reminded her of the reason she keeps her hands clean (usually): it's so much easier.

in the room with the broken window and shattered glass lies a canvas. she'll burnt it later, when he's gone.

she knows everything will be burnt soon: her lie, his heart, his life, the painting, all her fleeting fancies of staying. they are all so tangled together she cannot pull them apart and they will all be turned to ash in the morning light.

there are things she cannot consider, even in fleeting lapses, and they will burn too.

it will all burn and she will be gone, or at least this version of herself, the best version of herself, the one he has fallen for and she has too, after a fashion. she has flaws alright but they pale in comparison to the truth and her lips form words other than lies and she has been allowed to feel.

(but that's why she must burn, right?)

part iv:

they burn.

(she should be happy)

part v:

there are things she must confront but she does not.

it is over now, burnt and burning, flames licking up the walls claiming her lies and his truths and her truths and his lies, which have fallen into each other and she can no longer tell the difference.

she is glad she doesn't have to see him but she cannot understand why. her world works in black and white; pain and hurt and suffering (but never love) and he is a kaleidoscope of colour she cannot abide.

he burns too, in the end, just like everything, just like she does, and they crash back to earth, flames cracking and breaking and destroying.

she thought about staying once and this is the penalty, a wall of orange between the two of versions her, the lie and the truth, or was it the truth and the lie, she's lost the difference there too.

he is her light and she shuts the door, locks it away, lets it perish and wither and die and die and die.

she wants to cry. she doesn't cry. she is above such petty emotion.

she loves him. she doesn't love him. she is above such petty emotion.

that burns too.