Oct 17, 2001
by BlackRose
Everyone has dark times. The hours spent, in the still blackness of night, beset by the demons of too much thought. Laying awake, staring into nothingness, with only the ghosts of memories to keep one chill company.
Sydney's come in the hours before dawn, when the night is the most silent, and though his body lies beside my own his mind is too far away for me to touch. Sometimes it is dreams, the images of his mind's eye blood drenched in sleep and echoing outwards to jangle harsh against my own nerves. Other times he merely lies awake, his thoughts pressed deep and quiet behind open eyes, but always it is the same.
He aches. Empty and hollow, with a hunger that nothing I can offer will fill. He aches with it like a physical thing and in the darkness he retreats, alone, his memories cupped to his breast like treasured tokens who bury sharp spurs into his flesh. He keeps the wound alive within him, caressing it like the touch of a lover, opening it again and again.
I don't know what salve I can offer that wound. My words are clumsy and awkward at best, raw stones to his polished jewels, and though he takes my touch it does not press aught but his flesh. I may only watch, as voiceless as the memories he gathers to him.
He will drown in it, someday. Every night he slips a little farther away, wading willingly into a dark depth of chill waves. Though I stretch my hand forth he will not take it.
When he slips beneath those waters, will I be the one left to gather my own memories of him to me, treasuring the ghost of what was? I find myself storing them against that day - the taste and feel of him, the sound of his voice, the light glinting liquid gold from pale strands of hair. Anything and everything that he is willing to give me, barbs and all.
He aches. As do I. Could I but cut it from my own flesh, I think that I would give it back to him in a heartbeat. Better he then I.
But my prayers have nowhere to go any longer. My wishes have no life and in the dark, with the ghosts, we both lay awake and watch the other bleed.
