and bury it before it buries me
Lost things always find each other. They end up on that same island, with searching in their eyes, and limbs weary from trying to find their way. And maybe that island, is not really an island at all. But a land beside a lake.
When that first moment happens, that first instance where your heart soars in your chest and you feel more dangerously alive than you ever have before, you don’t remember to take a second to consider how far it is you have to fall from that point, how broken you will be when your heart crashes against dirt and stone. That is the flaw of loving. Of loving freely and with all of yourself. Falling out of love, out of a life that feels like electricity, like lightning under your skin, is wholly obliterating. The pieces of who you were and who you are get scattered so far, so savagely, that it becomes impossible to be that self any more. We call it growth, justify it by saying it’s a lesson learned, but this growth is only made so by the death of who you were. This growth is a sudden ending, a lost beginning. It is the putting back together of pieces that don’t fit, forcing them together until they do, and pretending like that could ever be enough.
But it has to be, because that’s growth, it’s how we learn from our mistakes.
We learn how to recognize them the next time we make the very same ones.
But we don’t learn to not make them again.
But she looks at him, and Elena knows she would make this mistake again and again just for the chance to catch a fleeting look, a casual glance, all from her man of shadows.
At first it had felt like her soul was unraveling, all those carefully knit-together pieces coming irreparably undone. But it felt different now. She had been so certain she'd never see him again. Except in her dreams where everything that could never be has lived. Here, Elena is able to tell herself that she can be enough for him and that what he can give her will be enough. She believes him when he says he will remember her, that this will last for an eternity, that he will not forget her, tire of her, will never find another to warm his bed, to warm his heart. She tells herself that this is true, that his love was rooted and that he would bloom flowers in the fissures of her heart. (That thing that has been shattered and never made whole again.)
It is all enough to cause her to tremble, her heart races in her chest.
She looks at him, looks at that face and she shatters into pieces like a porcelain doll as her eyes race to the sky. And she hopes, hopes that he can put back the pieces of her, to make her whole again. Hope is a dangerous thing. It flutters in her throat, presses against her bones, turning the insides of her into a softness she doesn’t recognize. He whispers into her lips and she is unraveling beneath his touch, a million stars shattered across the furthest corners of the darkest galaxy.
He must know what he is doing to her, must be able to feel the tremble of her golden skin where it presses flush to his, must be able to count the beats of her heart and realize it hums faster than her stars, now. Love has her trapped like a moth in a web and the golden girl does nothing to free herself, instead the spiders finds her and Elena huddles closer to him, as if he will never hurt her.
He could rip her apart.
He could be the end of her.
Still, she cannot tear herself away. Instead she warms herself like his words were fire, forgetting too, how such things can burn if you are not careful. Elena has never been careful. So she takes the flames he offers her and tells herself she it will never go cold. “Tell me, Tenebrae,” she whispers in the broad plane of his neck, her breath hot against his skin.
‘I love you.’
“I love you,” she whispers back to him, her voice steady despite the desire that curls within her. The words are the same, but they are so much more than just an echo. She wants to tell him what he does to her, how she could shatter to nothing but dust if only it were his hands that crushed her. But she doesn't say anything of those things, she just presses her forehead into the angles of his neck and breathes him in, tries to press the memory of him within her so that she can remember what it was like to be loved by him. “I think I’d like to stay there forever,” she says to him finally. Forever, in his soul. She pulls away, but it is not with that winter chill she had beside a cliff where he had pulled her from the sea. It is with that desire to look at him, to memorize every angle, every curve of his face.
“I have asked so much of you,” she says and those blue eyes fall down in something like defeat. “But, please, I have one more wish,” And those blue eyes, those impossibly blue eyes, that shine only from starlight and the flame that rests in her lantern that comes to sit between them, casting bright shadows on both their faces. “I wish you would dance with me like it was summer all over.” And she lifts the lantern into the sky. Only one wish, they had told her, and so she only had given one. Elena watches it go, and it is only when the light no longer touches her, when the only fire here is Elena’s own, that she brings her face, flush with desire back to his own. And she walks into the water like it wasn't autumn, like he hadn't hurt her already once, like she hadn't pushed him away, like this wasn't a lake at all, but a sea of fire.
Elena’s eyes change then, they look different, here, in the moonlight reflected off the lake, but altogether, too familiar. They glow with a wildfire, a summer’s night, a festival, forbidden desires, daring the stallion of shadows once more to dance with her.
Lost things always find each other.
And what is an orphan, if not the most lost thing of all?
When that first moment happens, that first instance where your heart soars in your chest and you feel more dangerously alive than you ever have before, you don’t remember to take a second to consider how far it is you have to fall from that point, how broken you will be when your heart crashes against dirt and stone. That is the flaw of loving. Of loving freely and with all of yourself. Falling out of love, out of a life that feels like electricity, like lightning under your skin, is wholly obliterating. The pieces of who you were and who you are get scattered so far, so savagely, that it becomes impossible to be that self any more. We call it growth, justify it by saying it’s a lesson learned, but this growth is only made so by the death of who you were. This growth is a sudden ending, a lost beginning. It is the putting back together of pieces that don’t fit, forcing them together until they do, and pretending like that could ever be enough.
But it has to be, because that’s growth, it’s how we learn from our mistakes.
We learn how to recognize them the next time we make the very same ones.
But we don’t learn to not make them again.
But she looks at him, and Elena knows she would make this mistake again and again just for the chance to catch a fleeting look, a casual glance, all from her man of shadows.
At first it had felt like her soul was unraveling, all those carefully knit-together pieces coming irreparably undone. But it felt different now. She had been so certain she'd never see him again. Except in her dreams where everything that could never be has lived. Here, Elena is able to tell herself that she can be enough for him and that what he can give her will be enough. She believes him when he says he will remember her, that this will last for an eternity, that he will not forget her, tire of her, will never find another to warm his bed, to warm his heart. She tells herself that this is true, that his love was rooted and that he would bloom flowers in the fissures of her heart. (That thing that has been shattered and never made whole again.)
It is all enough to cause her to tremble, her heart races in her chest.
She looks at him, looks at that face and she shatters into pieces like a porcelain doll as her eyes race to the sky. And she hopes, hopes that he can put back the pieces of her, to make her whole again. Hope is a dangerous thing. It flutters in her throat, presses against her bones, turning the insides of her into a softness she doesn’t recognize. He whispers into her lips and she is unraveling beneath his touch, a million stars shattered across the furthest corners of the darkest galaxy.
He must know what he is doing to her, must be able to feel the tremble of her golden skin where it presses flush to his, must be able to count the beats of her heart and realize it hums faster than her stars, now. Love has her trapped like a moth in a web and the golden girl does nothing to free herself, instead the spiders finds her and Elena huddles closer to him, as if he will never hurt her.
He could rip her apart.
He could be the end of her.
Still, she cannot tear herself away. Instead she warms herself like his words were fire, forgetting too, how such things can burn if you are not careful. Elena has never been careful. So she takes the flames he offers her and tells herself she it will never go cold. “Tell me, Tenebrae,” she whispers in the broad plane of his neck, her breath hot against his skin.
‘I love you.’
“I love you,” she whispers back to him, her voice steady despite the desire that curls within her. The words are the same, but they are so much more than just an echo. She wants to tell him what he does to her, how she could shatter to nothing but dust if only it were his hands that crushed her. But she doesn't say anything of those things, she just presses her forehead into the angles of his neck and breathes him in, tries to press the memory of him within her so that she can remember what it was like to be loved by him. “I think I’d like to stay there forever,” she says to him finally. Forever, in his soul. She pulls away, but it is not with that winter chill she had beside a cliff where he had pulled her from the sea. It is with that desire to look at him, to memorize every angle, every curve of his face.
“I have asked so much of you,” she says and those blue eyes fall down in something like defeat. “But, please, I have one more wish,” And those blue eyes, those impossibly blue eyes, that shine only from starlight and the flame that rests in her lantern that comes to sit between them, casting bright shadows on both their faces. “I wish you would dance with me like it was summer all over.” And she lifts the lantern into the sky. Only one wish, they had told her, and so she only had given one. Elena watches it go, and it is only when the light no longer touches her, when the only fire here is Elena’s own, that she brings her face, flush with desire back to his own. And she walks into the water like it wasn't autumn, like he hadn't hurt her already once, like she hadn't pushed him away, like this wasn't a lake at all, but a sea of fire.
Elena’s eyes change then, they look different, here, in the moonlight reflected off the lake, but altogether, too familiar. They glow with a wildfire, a summer’s night, a festival, forbidden desires, daring the stallion of shadows once more to dance with her.
Lost things always find each other.
And what is an orphan, if not the most lost thing of all?
so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me
@Tenebrae <3
![[Image: ddvotwe-59302ba6-6a81-47bf-9846-30c5a5db...0iFb4PvyXE]](https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/8026a53b-dc57-41ab-b574-9f8a8fe57ce4/ddvotwe-59302ba6-6a81-47bf-9846-30c5a5db0780.png?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzgwMjZhNTNiLWRjNTctNDFhYi1iNTc0LTlmOGE4ZmU1N2NlNFwvZGR2b3R3ZS01OTMwMmJhNi02YTgxLTQ3YmYtOTg0Ni0zMGM1YTVkYjA3ODAucG5nIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.ujCJH7FAbsQhfZlQniMmEd_vw-VmvaTDn0iFb4PvyXE)
let's light this house on fire
we'll dance in the warmth of its blaze
pixel made by the amazing star
