Disclaimer: Star Trek © Gene Roddenberry
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Belfast
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She's crashed home and cruised your world
But you can't get the Belfast out of the girl
This is how you throw her, you think you know her
Empty as wire, violent as fire
The Golden Palominos — Belfast
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This is the question that's always asked.
"How can you love a monster?"
Your lip curls above your teeth. You do not react well to being questioned. "He is no monster. He breathes, bleeds, like we do. He's real." Hot flesh underneath your fingertips. Real flesh. Heartbeat, audible. "Perhaps even realer than us," you continue. He's so intense; so hot; so all consuming. Architecture cracks and roads bend for him—for his words, his ideas, his fists. He's a black smear on a pristine surface. Everything fades in his presence. Even you.
(You think you know him.)
And like an unwelcome, leering guest, doubt sneaks into your mind.
It was attraction that got you first.
Or curiosity. Or hatred. But it attraction was the main ingredient of the little cocktail you call love.
Tight in all the right spots. Broad, muscled chest. Dark, lustrous hair. The solid lines that make up his features. The Cupid's bow. Little pieces of perfection, perfection, perfection. The air of mystery that hang about him encouraged you even more. And the most memorable thing—the eyes made of ice. The flicker of mystery.
Oh how you shivered in delight! Oh how you wished to break the ice, and watch his secrets run out like subsoil water!
(Careful what you wish for.)
His body is a temple.
But you can't see him when he goes inside.
He is holy, and when you fuck, you gaze up at him with hands on his perfect face and attempt to hold him. But he slips through your fingers. Cool water. One's past defines one. And you do not know his past. A steel wall, erected by his makers, separating you.
You only know small details. You know he has a hatred for humanity and an aversion to the colour white. You know he was fire, once, burning whoever who touched him. Hatred. War.
Your hands are full of blisters.
(He destroys you, even if he doesn't mean to.)
The flicker becomes intolerable. You meet his eyes and say "I love you" and no matter what he replies, it remains. He never fully focuses on you. He looks at you and you feel yourself evaporate.
That fire has burnt out whatever soul he had to begin with.
And when that fire dies—because every fire dies sometime—he becomes vast darkness. Emptiness. Death.
You will hold the last flickering candle up to him.
(You think he loves you.)
He blows it out.
A relationship cannot survive without light. It rots and dies.
But that isn't the worst thing.
You wants to reach inside his chest and feel his soul. To touch substance. But he is frightfully hollow. Sometimes Khan, who can break bones with his teeth, appears brittle; so reliant on his ideals that any doubt might shatter him completely. Draped in chains.
And one day it will be enough. The goblet will over. You will shake, and yell like a cornered dog. All your dislike and insecurities will pour out of you like liquefied rage.
You will wait for him to say something, anything.
And Khan will look at you and say nothing.