With shaking hands, she writes her name upon your back. The letters zigzag with the roughness of the motion, the flowing blood obscuring the cuts. The air is silent but for breathing. Yours, heavy and rough. Hers, so quiet it's almost not there. One would imagine that it must be excruciating. The blade is old and rusty and the skin parts reluctantly, as ice before a plowing ship. The stench of sweat and blood fouls the air, taking over the room entirely. It's overpowering, far more than the stale sex scent that hides in the corners.
What pollutes a space? What crime so foul ruins it? How much can any one place hold?
There are ghosts in these walls and they scream as they watch the branding. You cannot hear them screaming. You cannot hear anything at all anymore because her legs wrap tightly around your head, calves pressing into your ears as she kneels upon you. Your nose is squished into the fabric of the bed, forcing you to breathe in through it. And you breathe through the weight of the thousands who have sat in this bed before you and laughed at the little jokes. Her knife continues its work. The pain doesn't spike or peak because she doesn't work from cruelty. Instead, it is a single companion, a dull burning from your shoulders and spine. It is a friend. It is warm and pleasant, moving through your body, stroking you tenderly.
Yes, the pain is almost a living creature the way it slips alongside your mind. It enters your brain and tells you how to behave. It tells you what you are. It tells you where to go. It tells you what you are.
It's a warm coiling twisting thing and it's still better than the alternative, better than facing up. It's better than screaming. It's better that the fire stays inside, that the pain stays buried. You wear it with a smile even as the blood pins the shirt to your back. It's a constant branding remark and sometimes it slips up to your tongue and stirs it in strange patterns, harsh words slipping out already, too far, too much. It's isolating, binding, driving you onwards with the resounding blows of the hammer in the back of your head.
Because she broke through skin first and then bone, her blade carefully opening your lungs up so you'll think of her with every laboured breath. Because when you're in the hospital and the lights are flickering and someone in the distance is screaming for help, you'll never feel more alone. You'll never feel more alone then when it's 2 am and you're crying in bed because something is wrong, everything is wrong.
Because she wrote her name on your heart to make sure that you could never move on.
Because it's intoxicating, aggravating, haunting your tepid motions. The slow dance, the one-two tango of shuffling feet, leaves bloodstained footprints in the hall. And the odd song coming on to shuffle brings fits of tears and when you catch yourself in the mirror, scarred and torn, it feels like you're seeing yourself for the first time and it hurts.
It hurts when you stand, when you limp up the stairs, when you whine. When your body fails, failing, collapses around you. It's a continuous state, not a single moment but an aeon of torture. And in your worst moments, in your dreams, she's in your bed again and that coppery taste is in your mouth and the familiar pain knits into your back and your muscles tense. Your muscles tense so you don't scream.
Because the house is silent but for the tears. Because no on will ever love you again because they'll see the markings and know. Because you're not your own person any more and she carved your dreams out of you too. She plunged her arm into your brain and kissed your forehead and made sure you knew that you'd never achieve anything ever again.
And now you're alone. And you can't sleep because it hurts to breathe. And it's been weeks since you've seen a friend and you have to ask why, if you even have any friends anymore.
But you've got her, you suppose. You'll always have her. She'll hold you tight as everyone moves on without you. As your foul moods and tangible storms drive everyone else away, as you struggle to tame that foul beast that stalks the depths of your mind. Your thoughts are dark and maybe that's the most suitable thing for them to be. Maybe dripping yourself with blood and violence is morally correct, a fundamental good. The best thing for you.
Because the harder you try, the harder she twists the knife. She carves them up fresh each night. She makes sure you know, makes sure you feel it. Makes sure you know your place.
Her hand is on the back of your head. Her voice is in your ear. And maybe years ago, when your fingers met hers, it was to claw her off. It was to struggle and kick and scream and gouge for her eyes.
But her knife is sharp and consistent. Her energy is boundless. And maybe it's easier to just hold her hand gently. To pull her into you. To feel your body giving out as she smiles.
It's what she wants. And maybe if I can't have what I want, that's the best thing for it.