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When you're five, you watch a guy get his lights punched in by one of the gang men. You watch in morbid fascination, with a gaggle of other kids. Later, you ask a boy a couple years older than you why he got beat up anyway.
"He was bein' a fag," the boy says, rolling his eyes.
It's a memory that sticks with you for the rest of your life.
You're still just little when the doctors tell you you're not normal and you never will be. Too little to really understand just how much of a death sentence that is. All you understand is the look of pity in their eyes, and you hate pity. It's in defiance of their condescending words that you learn to seal away all the pitiable parts of you where nobody will find them again.
Normal. It's a word you repeat to yourself often. Learning to make eye contact. Learning to keep your interests to yourself. Learning to hear tone and not just the words.
Slowly, painstakingly, you learn to be normal.
A few years later, there's a new kid, one that you cross paths with for the first time when some kids your age are teasing the newbie.
"I'm not a girl," the newbie insists, red rimming their eyes. The boys laugh and gawk and jeer. Something in their eyes is reminiscent of your own hollow gaze, and you hate that. "I'm a boy."
"If you're a boy, then where's your dick?" one of the kids says, snickering. Something about it ticks you off deeply, though you can't say why, only that it reminds you of something you don't want to be reminded of. Scowling, ignoring phantom hands, you put out your cigarette and step into the fight.
"Why do you care so much about his dick?" you say, wrinkling your nose at the taunters. "You a fag or something?"
"Ew, no way!!"
"Then fuck off and leave the guy alone. None of your goddamn business. The hell's got you thinking about dicks anyway?" The assholes turn tail, and you pat the new kid on the back. "Don't let those guys bug you. I'm Arthur."
"V—" the new kid begins, then cuts himself off. "…Tsar."
From that moment on, you've found someone to protect.
There are lessons that you learn in your life, learns until they're ingrained into you good as instinct.
Don't mouth off to anybody you can't beat in a fight. Always keep a weapon on you. Act tough, but not so tough that adults will think you're "giving them attitude". Don't cry. Don't show any interest in the girly books or toys. Don't ever look at guys that way.
Just don't.
You know these. You've had them through your skull for years. You follow the rules that you've set for yourself to survive, and you do it, you make it.
It doesn't matter that you've never once liked a girl the way all the other guys talk about. It doesn't matter that when you imagine your future there's never a girl in it. It doesn't matter. You're better than that.
The boy who sits next to you at school has a dimple on the right side of his mouth, and two freckles by his left ear, and when he laughs his nose crinkles up like crushed aluminum foil.
You like him. Like looking at him. And it's scary. How far is too far? How long can you look at a friend until it's more than friendly?
You're not gay. You don't like this guy at all, no. You like this guy so little that you ask the teacher to change seats so you won't be able to stare at him anymore.
A dead cat. Limp on the ground, limbs bent. No blood, but its glassy eyes wide open.
There are rocks scattered, around and on top of the poor thing. And just a few minutes ago you saw a flock of older boys, laughing and jeering, leave from this spot.
You've always liked cats. So small and cute. Kinda like you, quiet and aloof.
Your hands shake as you reach out to the corpse. You pull back for a moment, not sure what you're doing. You'll catch diseases if you touch it, or something like that.
But you don't just wanna leave it.
They killed it. The poor kitty, they killed it. And they laughed. It's so small. Probably just a baby. So little. Undeserving. How could they be so mean? It's not fair. It's not right.
It deserves a proper burial, right? Poor kitty. And if you run inside to get gloves, there's the risk that it won't be here when you get back.
So you pick up the kitten with your bare hands. Oh— Its little body is still warm.
After carrying it for a bit, tucked to your chest, you find a spot in the yard with soft dirt. You set the cat down gently and dig a little hole, as deep as you can make it with just your hands.
You grab the cat again, and place it softly in the shallow grave.
"I'm sorry," you whisper. Because it deserves an apology, even if you're not the one who hurt it.
You fill the hole back up with dirt, stamp it down, and cover the spot with leaves. Poor kitty shouldn't get disturbed.
Then you go back inside and wash your hands and change your shirt. Cuz, well. Diseases.
The first time you hurt yourself on purpose, you're in grade school.
You're in detention for getting into a fight. A fight in defense of Tsar, because those are the only fights you ever get into. You're struggling to hold back tears, and it's embarrassing, because you get in trouble at school all the time, it's not worth crying about.
"I'll give you something to cry about" is what staff at the orphanage say when you tear up over skinning your knee or the showers running out of hot water - and then, if you don't suck it up, they keep their word. You've gotten slapped or spanked plenty of times before in situations like that. Pretty quickly, though, you learned to dry up your tears whenever that happens. It pisses them off when you don't react.
The teacher isn't paying attention, and the edge of your desk has some sharp metal sticking out. They don't bother to sand it down, they never do. You gather your breath, roll up your sleeve, and press your wrist against the edge.
For a moment you feel like screaming. That moment passes. Beads of blood are beginning to dot up along the indented line in your arm. You roll your sleeve back down.
During the rest of detention, you don't think so much about how you got in trouble for something stupid, or the words those other kids were calling Tsar. Your attention is honed in on the small ache at your wrist that throbs in time with your pulse.
With every tick of the wall clock, the pain feels more and more comforting.
There's no use in trying to fight back, not when it's someone older, bigger, stronger. You've tried a few times. It's not fun - the feeling of hands on your limbs burns for hours later, almost as bad as the phantom sensations on your mouth.
You just need to shut up and get it over with. No point in mouthing off. It always happens anyway, fighting back only serves to make things worse. It's better be degraded for being obedient than injured for being a smartass. At least this way, you can imagine you have a choice in the matter.
Nobody ever points out the bruises on your knees, or the handprints around your neck. You start wearing pants and high-collared shirts. You'd rather pretend they don't notice than know they notice and don't give a damn.
By the time you're twelve you've heard the word tranny enough times to know that your little brother is one.
Or at least, that most people would call him one. You refuse to believe he really is. He's different. Trannies are, like, delusional or fags or both. That's what all the guys say. And Tsar isn't like that. He really is a guy, even though his body's a little different than most.
Sometimes your can't help but wonder, what's the harm if a guy wants to be a girl, or if a girl wants to be a guy? Why does everybody care so much?
But that's not something you have the courage to say. So you don't say it. You try not to even think it. You research late at night how to help Tsar with his problem, how to help him look more like a normal guy, how to get people at school to quit calling him by his first name.
You know, logically, that these aren't the types of things a normal guy needs to worry about. You know, logically, that the government and the doctor and the school all say that Tsar is a girl. You know, logically, that his issue can't be chalked up to a paperwork error or a medical condition.
But if Tsar's a queer, then you are too. And that's the last thing you can every allow yourself to be.
You've shared a room with Tsar for something like five years now, but this is the first time Tsar's ever shaken you awake in the middle of the night.
"Whassup?" you ask groggily. You can barely see Tsar's face with how dark it is.
"I— I'm bleeding," he says. Immediately you're alert, eyes wide. "It's all over my bed."
"What happened? Where's it from?"
Your eyes have adjusted to the darkness just enough to see Tsar pointing. "Down there."
There's a couple ideas you have about what's happened, and neither are the type of thing you're equipped to deal with. That being said, one option is better than the other. Older girls and older boys both talk about bleeding girls (and though Tsar isn't really a girl, in this case he's close enough), but they talk about them in different ways. With girls there's talk about times of the month and cramping, a natural thing, a body's intended function. With boys, it's always nauseatingly vulgar, in a way that comes hand-in-hand with violence.
So, unlikely as it may be, you have to ask, "Nobody's… hurt you, or anything, right?"
"What? No. Can you help me clean up?"
You toss the sheets in the washer, and sneak some products from the boxes under the sink in the bathrooms, and all the while you thank the god you don't believe in that Tsar is still more innocent than you.
There's a nurse at the looney bin who acts a little nicer than the rest, and stares at you like you're fresh meat. You know enough about how things work to know what that look means, and you make a habit of never letting her alone with you.
Until one day you fuck up, act out while orderlies are watching, and the leering nurse accompanies you to your room for an early bedtime.
The door shuts. She's smiling in that way you know means you need to put as much space as possible between you and her. It's pointless, though. Every step you take backwards, she takes a larger one forwards.
Like a game of cat and mouse, it drags on for seconds that feel like eternities. You retreat. She follows.
You're almost relieved when she opens her mouth. That feeling shatters when moments later, she gives you an order that passes through your ears like a scream through water. The words don't quite carry, not so much as the idea of what she wants. Your heart shakes in your ribcage. You're cornered. Prey and natural predator.
"What if I don't wanna?" you manage to say. The faux-playful expression on her face drops.
"Then the gentlemen up top will be finding out why so many bottles of trihexyphenidyl go missing every time you visit."
Okay.
Well.
It's survival, you tell yourself as you reluctantly step nearer. It's this or punishment, you remind yourself as she hunches down to your height. It's not like you have any other choice, you repeat to yourself as contact is made.
Your body is still trembling an hour later.
God, you never want to be touched again.
Everyone feels like they're out of their body every now and then, right? It's normal. You're not weird for it.
It's unpredictable. Sometimes all it takes is for an adult to look at you a few seconds too long, and you don't feel real for hours. As if your body is a marionette, and you're puppeting it from above, rather than moving autonomously from within. Other times, you can get slapped around until you're red, and remain painfully aware of it the whole time.
But that's normal, right?
You ask Tsar, once, if he ever feels like his body and him are separate. He says yeah. So it's normal. Nothing to worry about.
Sometimes the disconnect is so strong you're not even aware it happened at all. You only find out when trying to remember things like if you finished your homework or not, and all the memories from the other day are grayed over with that feeling.
To be honest, sometimes you don't even feel like yourself.
But that's normal too, isn't it?
When you're fourteen there's a girl who says she likes you. Around a bunch of different people, all of them playing drinking games together, she casually asks you out.
The truth is you doesn't like her. But with all those eyes on you, all you can think is that you're supposed to.
So you nod your head. So you go to another room and make out with her. And it's— fine, whatever.
Fine, but not good.
You keep kissing, and you keep waiting for that switch to flip, that spark to light, but there's nothing. Nothing at all. Panicking, you kiss her harder, and she seems to think you want more - which you should, but you don't, and you don't know why - and things you don't want to happen keep happening, they keep happening. Past a certain point it starts to become a blur. Words that you never said leave your mouth. Your body moves jerkily, puppet on strings.
You don't remember ever saying yes.
But you don't remember saying no, either. So it's your own fault in the end.
Vanya is one of the few older guys you've ever felt safe around. Or, really, maybe the only one.
It wasn't like that at first. You were wary as shit the first few times the two of you interacted. He's bigger than you, older than you, above you in the gang hierarchy - it'd only be natural for you to be on guard.
But as time goes on you relax.
You trust him, as strange as that is to say. Sure, he's a little thick-skulled, a little tactless, but he grew on you. He's not quite an older brother figure, but it comes close, sometimes.
When he smokes with you, or ruffles your hair, or tells you about whatever funny bullshit he's gotten up to today…
You feel safe. Safer than you've ever felt.
And when he promises you he cares about you, you can't help but believe him.
A few years ago you tried to kill yourself.
Looking back on the memory, the only emotion you can muster is a vague sense of embarrassment. Maybe that's not the usual reaction, but you can't help it. It feels so distant, like a story recounted secondhand.
Here's what you remember. You remember a dull pair of kitchen scissors that Tsar had used to cut his hair a week prior. You remember holding them in a stiff, childish grip, your shirt rolled up to expose your stomach.
You remember, in the way you remember dreams, trying to stab yourself. Mechanically, unthinkingly, near instinctually; over and over and over. Blade driving into flesh. Push it in deeper. Pull down harshly, tear open skin. You remember the only feelings at the time being a half-hearted stinging sensation and a dull frustration at not being able to cut any deeper.
You don't remember why you tried to kill yourself. Where you found the scissors, hell, why you picked them over pills. Not even what room you were in.
You remember Tsar coming in and catching you in the act. You remember how terrified he was. You remember him cleaning out the wound, because your own limbs felt too heavy to move.
It was a pathetic attempt anyway. The wound scarred up only a week later.
You know guys your age are meant to jerk off, at the very least. Sex is constantly on the minds, or at least the mouths, of what feels like every guy at school. The everpresent subject of conversations that you don't care to join.
You don't see why it matters, though. Why anybody gives a shit. It's just sex. Nauseating at worst. Boring at best.
Maybe it'd be different if you were interested in anybody. You're not, though. Every time you try to look at a girl, to find something appealing in her face or tits or ass or whatever the hell other guys go on about, you hit a wall. Nothing there.
You've tried to get off before, too. But every time, your fingers can't even find your own damn waistband before they start shaking. And the few times you've managed to get past that, the hands on your dick feel like a stranger's, and you feel sick with the tears you're holding back for the rest of the damn night. One time it was so bad that Tsar noticed, and asked you if you were okay, and you didn't know how to answer, because "I'm shit at masturbating" is just about the most embarrassing thing that could ever come out of your mouth, let alone admit to your little brother of all people.
It's okay, though. It's - okay, maybe not normal, but it's passable. You'd rather be focusing on schoolwork and shit like that than anything as unimportant as sex. Really, it's all just a big waste of time, a scam made up to distract the world - and it seems you're the only one who hasn't fallen for it.
Everything seems to change on the day you meet Yura Beletsky.
Acne-spattered face and idiotic grin. Voice barely cracking and squeaking as long asides are made. Stupid, annoying, everything about him, yet you don't push him away.
It's been so long since you've been that scared. It's been even longer since someone touched you the way he did without wanting to hurt you.
It doesn't make sense to you at all, really, why the hell Yura still tried to save you even after you pulled a goddamn knife on him. The idea of it goes against every instinct you've ever had. Not interfering then would have been the easy way out, wouldn't it? And the way Yura was grabbing at those bottles makes it seem like he's the type of guy desperate for an easy way out.
But his hands on your legs, pulling you away from what's otherwise certain death - that's not the easy way out. Tying the tape around your ankles just so that you won't be so panicky, pulling a whole-ass trash can over, reassuring you over and over that you'd be okay - no, that's definitely not the easy way in this situation. Not even close.
Yura is annoying. Yura is insufferable. Yura is a quick-tongued sticky-fingered little shit who seems to delight in nothing more than pissing you off.
He also saved your life.
You can't help but look at him differently after that.
Sometimes you go through days on autopilot. Distant, detached, a background character in your own life. Not that you could ever pass for a main character anyway - but on days like these you'd never so much as qualify for a protagonist.
Days like these, it feels like you do things only out of habit, and a vague idea that "this is what Arthur would do if he was here". Which is of course crazy, because you are Arthur, and you are here, but another thing about days like these is that they're always slightly crazy, in a way that's somehow wrapped around to becoming normal again.
Days like these are characterized by the emptiness in every action and the hollow look in your eyes when you glance at your reflection. Mirrors are your enemy, on days like these. The way you look - despite being the same as always - is haunting.
There are some days when you can't even look at your own hands without feeling an overwhelming sense of wrongness. Why do they look like that? Oh, God, why the hell do they look like that? These aren't your hands, they're just meat, even your body isn't your own, it's all just raw and tender meat.
And then a few minutes later, when you've panicked enough for a lifetime, a switch flips and you suddenly don't give a shit.
There are days when you have negative tolerance for Yura's bullshit. Days when all the memorized facts for an exam bleed right out of your head. Days when you have to bite back swear words at every adult who dares to talk to you.
It's not you, you always think when you work the hazy memories over in your mind.
But that's crazy. It's your body. Who the hell else would it be, if not you?
Everyone has off days. It's nothing to kick up a fuss about.
You want to be held, but never to be touched.
The best day of your life, you think, is the day you give Tsar his guitar.
You worked your ass off for it. The hardest you've ever worked for anything besides surviving. You remember how Tsar sobbed past midnight when the orphanage's acoustic guitar gave out. The sound stuck in your mind for ages, and when you saw that electric guitar in Vanya's dad's garage, sparks flew in your mind and you knew what you had to do.
You've got no wrapping paper, and it'd be a pain in the ass to wrap the guitar's weird shape anyway, so you don't really bother. What you do is you hide the guitar under the blanket on Tsar's bed, and you wait for him to come up to your shared room.
"Hey," you say when he finally comes in. He blinks.
"Whassup?"
"I got you something. It's on your bed."
Tsar looks, and seems to gather from the lumpy shape of his blanket that it's under there. So he lifts it up, and—
That shriek is fucking ear-piercing.
"It's for me?" Tsar eventually says once all his screaming mileage is used up, cradling the guitar to his chest and looking at you like you just handed him a million dollars. You can't help but let out a small, quiet laugh.
"Yeah. Thought you needed one of your own after all these years."
He keeps staring at you, his eyes shining. You think you can spot a couple tears forming in the corners. You hope they're happy ones.
"You're the best," Tsar says after a few moments, and you can tell he means it with every bone in his thirteen-year-old body. "Can I hug you?"
You don't usually like being touched, but, "Sure."
He gently places the guitar back on his bed, then tackles you.
You squeeze him back.
You're always the last one out for physical education, because you're always the last one to put on the uniform, because you hate changing in the room full of other guys.
You're not sure what exactly it is that you hate about it. But the idea that they might be looking at you, that there's nothing you can do to pry their gazes off… That's terrifying enough on its own.
There's only one person you feel safe changing in front of, and that's Tsar, for obvious reasons. Even then, you pretty much always ask him to look away. Having eyes on you makes you feel nauseous, even when they're well-intentioned.
That's not the only reason you avoid it. You always feel so self-conscious, standing there in a room full of half-nude guys.
Not because you're gay. You're not gay. It's just weird, alright? It's fucking weird and you don't have to explain why to anybody. None of their goddamn business.
So you always wait till everyone else is done before you change.
It's not a big deal. You don't know why everybody acts like it is.
Ever since the bridge, you've been more aware of… well, you've just been calling him 'the kid' in your head. After all, he's really just little you, so you've got the same name and all that. Maybe it's a little abnormal to be thinking of him as 'him' in the first place, rather than 'yourself'. But you don't spend much time worrying about it.
Jesus, that kid.
Back there, under the bridge, you could have sworn he was right there next to you. Your body was - it was a lot of things. It was on fire, it was limp and shaking, it was full of adrenaline. Most of all, it wasn't your own.
You'd almost been ready to let death claim you, until he showed up.
And, well, he's you. You're him. But somehow, thinking of his face, his eyes, a small boy who hadn't yet learned fear… Only that was enough to drag you back. To get it through your head that you can't die. That you want, need, to live. Not only for your sake, but for his.
It's a weird way to think of things, maybe. An abstraction that isn't really under your control. But every time you step too near into wondering what the hell's wrong with you, your brain forces you off course.
So you won't think about it. It's nobody's business besides your own, anyway. Nobody needs to know that when you're struggling to eat, the only thing that gets food in your mouth is reminding yourself that this is the kid’s body too, and he doesn't deserve to go hungry. Nobody needs to know about when you're struggling to get out of bed, you imagine waking up the kid and helping him get ready. Nobody needs to know you care more for a pretend child version of you than your actual self.
Nobody needs to know. It shouldn't matter. It doesn't matter.
It's normal. You're normal.
And the kid, he's normal too.
What scares you is that you like hurting people.
It shouldn't scare you. Well, not as much as it does. It's not like you're unfamiliar with pain. No, you are. Intimately so.
Pain is a power grab, the same as sex. Something you do to show the other person who's boss. Something you do less to make yourself feel good and more to make them feel bad. It's establishment and upkeep of the hierarchy. It's a way to get people to fear you, and fear is synonymous with obedience. That's just the way things are, you know?
So, yeah. It shouldn't scare you. But it does anyway.
Getting into fights - it excites you. Landing hits, hearing the thump of your fist into flesh - God, it's euphoric. The day after you met Yura, he was covered in bruises left by your violence, and you had to bite back an uncharacteristic grin at the sight.
It's normal. Hurting people is normal. That's the way things are.
So why do you get the feeling that you like it in exactly the wrong way?
About a year into your friendship with Yura he starts hanging out with this girl. Who you are not at all jealous of, no. What's there to envy? All of Yura's attention? You never wanted it anyway.
He's so goddamn touchy with her. And she's become his new favorite person to tease. How cute. Good for them, really. And good for you, too, to finally be rid of that asshole's constant attention.
You don't miss it. That's stupid. What's there to miss about the way he used to always be looking at you and clinging to you and finding new ways to annoy you? What kind of mentally fucked fag would enjoy that? Not you, for sure.
Besides, you're still friends. It's not like he's abandoned you. So you shouldn't feel as if he has.
What really pisses you off about Yura's new best friend Sanya is how she acts like she's some kind of fucking badass. Dressing like a thug, lugging around that metal bat, even referring to your friend group as a 'gang' - does she have any goddamn idea who she is? What right does she have to say that shit? To treat the groups that ruined your childhood like some kind of game?
Fucking insufferable.
And as if things couldn't get any worse, Tsar has a goddamn crush on the bitch.
Vanya is always a comfort.
Being with him has become so easy over the years. Him and Tsar, they're the people you can relax the most around. And Vanya especially you can talk to about pretty much anything.
A lot of your most vulnerable conversations happen while fixing cars together. No pressure to meet eyes, to respond immediately, or even at all. You just throw words out, and Vanya hits them back.
Sometimes you talk about Tsar. About how goddamn tired you are, sometimes, of taking care of him. These conversations always come with a thousand disclaimers - of course you love Tsar, of course you don't regret shielding him, of course if you had to do it all over again you would. Every time Vanya tells you it's not necessary, he knows, but you still feel the need, every time. It's almost like an apology.
During one of those conversations, you let too much slip. An off-handed comment about how you're not sure you're even right to count yourself a virgin. Vanya is silent, unsettlingly so considering his big mouth. And then, in the softest voice you've heard from him, he speaks up.
"Ya know you've got a place here if y'need it, right?"
And it's so little, but it makes you choke up.
"That's nice of you," you mumble into the car engine when the tension in your throat looses enough for you to speak.
"Really, man. You're like family to me 'n my pops. If you're not safe there, I've got you."
"I'm safe now," you insist. "It was in the past. But thank you."
What you don't say is that he's family to you too. You don't need to say it, though. He pats your back and you whine about the motor oil staining your shirt and that's that.
You're lucky to know him. Even though his greatest talents in life are drinking perfume and setting cars on fire.
It was stupid of you to drink so much. When you're sloshed like this, you're powerless. Head clouded, limbs weak, it'd be all too easy for someone to…
Well.
Anyway.
You end up sticking near your friends, for the most part. Safety in numbers, even if their stupid drinking games were what got you to this point in the first place.
Vanya and Yana drift off, still within view, but not so close. Sanya, typing aggressively, retreats to a dark corner and illuminates it with the brightness of her phone screen.
So, really, it's just you and Yura right now.
Drunk Yura is a recipe for disaster on his own. Combine that with Drunk Arthur, and you shudder to imagine what might happen.
But you don't wanna leave him, either.
You loosen up. Of course you do, of course you would - it's Yura, and it's impossible for you to stay mad at him forever.
He gets you smiling, laughing. You look at him softer than you're supposed to. He looks at you back.
"I wanna kiss ya."
Your heart does a flip in your chest. Disgust, right? It has to be. Wanting to kiss another guy, one you're friends with, even… That's a nasty thing to want. Let alone to say, out loud, where anyone could hear.
"What?"
He laughs. You used to find his laugh annoying. Wonder when that changed. Beer breath wafts into your face. Gross. Yeah. His lips are chapped and he's got a few crooked teeth, not that you're looking, not that you'd ever look.
"Don't tell me y've never thought about it," he says, or slurs more like, his hands sneaking to your neck. The action knocks all the air from your chest. He traces patterns on the ligaments and you don't push him away. Why don't you push him away?
"'m not gay, Yura," you insist. His face is all ruddy as he grins. You can't tell if it's from the alcohol or the current subject matter.
"Neither'm I," he says. He's looking at you like you're the only other person in the world. You swallow, trying to catch your breath. "Doesn't mean we can't have some fun, yeah? Just friends bein' friendly."
Your gaze flicks around the room. It's too full, too stuffy. There's too many people, and you swear to God they're all looking right at the two of you.
"Not in here," you say.
So you don't do anything - in there.
And of fucking course Yura doesn't remember any of it in the morning. Of fucking course you've gotta be in this alone, just like always.
It's not fair. It's not fucking fair.
What happened was a mistake. A mistake you refuse to repeat. A mistake you can't understand how you even made. You're smarter than to ever let yourself do anything gay, you always have been. How the hell did you slip up so badly?
You're distant from Yura for near a week afterwards, and though you're sure he's noticed, he doesn't say a thing.
Well, good.
You're straight. You are. It's— What else would you be? You're not a fucking faggot. God. You'll never stoop that low, you can't, you wouldn't.
It was just a stupid fuckup. You're never yourself when you're drunk anyway. So it doesn't count.
And you didn't fucking like it, either.
For months afterwords that night features in your dreams.
Nightmares. They've gotta be.
Every time, you wake up aching.
There's something rotten inside of you. Rotting in the back of your mind, rotting in the center of your ribcage, rotting between your legs. You've hidden it away for so long, pushed it down, pretended it didn't exist. But you brush against the rot every day now, it feels. The stench never goes away.
You won't acknowledge it. You can't acknowledge it. Doing that would be equivalent to death.
So you have to do what you've always done. Lock it up and throw away the key. Swallow it down the way you're so good at it.
There's something rotten inside of you, and if you could, you'd vomit it all up. But you don't know if you'd survive the purge. The idea of tasting it all again is too much to bear. Even if, somehow, you were strong enough, you have a stinking suspicion that it's sunk too deep to pass - that it's become a part of you.
God knows it's nasty. Oh, it makes you fucking sick. But it might just be a part of you by now. The bile that coats your tongue and the bug that curdles your stomach, the muck beneath your fingernails and the mold behind your eyeballs. You can rinse yourself in bleach as much as you want, but you know you'll never be clean.