More bitter TDW ramblings from your not terribly friendly cellmate Loki. :-)
Us
Does is hurt you every time you say it? And you do say it, don't you brother? You talk about us; the we that was. Yes, I know you, you talk about it. Now and then, in passing at least.
When we were children. When we were growing up together. When we went wherever, when we tricked whoever. When father said this to us, when mother read us that story. We fought together, played together you said. So it must have been true. You always have been so tediously predictable.
You do it automatically don't you? A reflex you don' even think about until it's out of your mouth and you feel a stab , you taste just a little acid in the back of your mouth, but you can't take that tiny word back because it is true. It is the way that it was. It was true to you heart at the moment of utterance whatever you try and tell yourself afterward.
And you try so hard don't you? You justify your slip of the tongue on the basis that you've been saying it that way for so long it does not feel right to say it any other way. It doesn't mean anything; doesn't mean there's still an us. Just that there was. And though you might deny me all you like, ignore me all you will – you won't say there is no history however much easier it would be for you. You beat yourself up over me whilst doing nothing to really help. You leave me here, and so doing are so wrong you cannot stand yourself, any more than you can stand me – you are every shade of awful but the fates forbid you would lie! You don't want to be me now do you?
So you try to make it easier, after you slip and fall, cutting yourself on that accidental us a hundred times you try to change. But I or me – they just don't feel right, do they? You try, but it never works for long. Not when everything tells you us and we. The singular feels like poison rolling around the mouth, a great burning marble that hurts but you're too stubborn to spit it out. I and me – they make you feel broken. You're not yourself unless you can speak of an us. And of course, you're not broken, not the mighty Thor. You couldn't admit to that, couldn't stand to have to face what you've done, where you've placed me and how you've ignored me.
I wonder how much an us conjures up. When you fall do you roll around in the memory of me, crying and hurting and wanting all at once? Do you tear apart the happy memories and hate them for evoking a time that can never be repeated? A time that never quite existed, not the way you think it did. Better or worse, I could not say. I don't remember a thing. Obviously. Do you pick the fights apart word for word, because they are easier to remember? Or is it not easier at all? Do you flinch at every word you said, wondering how you could have made it better. How you could have stopped me, helped me, changed the present but one small moment of thoughtfulness?
Maybe you don't think at all. That seems more likely. Maybe you've put me away in your mind as easily as you have in the flesh. I would not put that past you. Maybe you've cast me off and moved on blissfully, buoyed up on the sea of that eternally sunny disposition to new and better things. Yes, that sounds like something you would do. I do hate you so bitterly/ detestably/ eternally/dearly.
I enjoy thinking of you, you know. I adore imagining you cutting yourself to pieces over me; slicing yourself to bits on a razorblade of us. Persistently saying the thing you know will hurt you because my existence hurts you now and you know you deserve to suffer for that too and yes, for ignoring me, for not thinking of me enough. You could never think of me enough. Even if you did a hundred times better than you do I would not be satisfied and so you see I have to hate you for not being able to live up to an impossible expectation. But you do stumble and curse and hurt and remember me with every us you utter – and you do say it – don't you brother?
_x_
I was thinking about how I almost always refers to myself and my sister in automatic plural when talking about the past and how this is something everyone does. Then I thought about Thor and Loki and it all got a bit weird and this happened. Yeh. :-)