Disclaimers in part one.
II: A Robot Heart: Incident
He collapses on top of me, sweaty chest to sweaty back, burrows his nose between my head and my shoulder. Sighs ever so deeply, the inhalation pressing me into the bed.
Ever since I was shot
silence cocoons me, the movement and terror of a large group of people are somehow separate from the universe I inhabit in the universe I inhabit there is only the thumping of my heart under my hand and the piercing scream of sirens in my popping ears
I've had trouble having sex face to face.
I don't want him-anyone to see the scar. It didn't happen if he doesn't look.
I don't want him to see it and know that I'm not invincible. I don't want him to touch it with trembling fingers, kiss it, ask if it hurts. It doesn't hurt.
I hurt. The scar is just flesh that doesn't know it's dead, hiding a heart that keeps grabbing my blood and thrusting it away no matter how often I tell it to stop.
I don't like my heart. It's all broken and irregular and the tissues don't match.
It does the job though. It's slaving away inside me. I wish my heart would become self-aware, want its freedom. Just push its hardening veins up through the edges of the scar, throw my chest open, and run.
He rolls off me, onto his back. I turn my head, just to watch his profile as he falls asleep, watch his chin fall forward, jaw go slack. As if he were dying.
But he doesn't fall asleep. He stares at the ceiling for awhile, and then looks at me. There's a knowing in his eyes I've never seen before.
"When you look at me like that," he says softly, and I feel my face go blank in self-defence. "When you look at me like that--like I'm standing in front of something terrible, blocking your view, and you want me out of the way--when you look at me like that, I hate you."
End incident.
II: A Robot Heart: Incident
He collapses on top of me, sweaty chest to sweaty back, burrows his nose between my head and my shoulder. Sighs ever so deeply, the inhalation pressing me into the bed.
Ever since I was shot
silence cocoons me, the movement and terror of a large group of people are somehow separate from the universe I inhabit in the universe I inhabit there is only the thumping of my heart under my hand and the piercing scream of sirens in my popping ears
I've had trouble having sex face to face.
I don't want him-anyone to see the scar. It didn't happen if he doesn't look.
I don't want him to see it and know that I'm not invincible. I don't want him to touch it with trembling fingers, kiss it, ask if it hurts. It doesn't hurt.
I hurt. The scar is just flesh that doesn't know it's dead, hiding a heart that keeps grabbing my blood and thrusting it away no matter how often I tell it to stop.
I don't like my heart. It's all broken and irregular and the tissues don't match.
It does the job though. It's slaving away inside me. I wish my heart would become self-aware, want its freedom. Just push its hardening veins up through the edges of the scar, throw my chest open, and run.
He rolls off me, onto his back. I turn my head, just to watch his profile as he falls asleep, watch his chin fall forward, jaw go slack. As if he were dying.
But he doesn't fall asleep. He stares at the ceiling for awhile, and then looks at me. There's a knowing in his eyes I've never seen before.
"When you look at me like that," he says softly, and I feel my face go blank in self-defence. "When you look at me like that--like I'm standing in front of something terrible, blocking your view, and you want me out of the way--when you look at me like that, I hate you."
End incident.
