don't say a word {nino&caly} jb!blitz

I forgot how exhausting crying was. Perhaps that's why Perdita rarely rises from her bed, drained to the core. Tears might in fact be our energy, what drives us to be alive - and when being alive gets too much we must shed them or we'll explode. Perhaps. But there's an anchor in my chest that's weighing me to the floor and I feel like I'll never rise again. (I wonder if tears ever run out. If you ever just ache, empty and dried clean. I guess I'll find out sooner or later.)

He's flapping a hankerchief in my face and I didn't realise until now that not just old people carry those around these days. Maybe he's an old soul, wise beyond his years. There's an itching in me to take in his wisdom and pour out my life story, but just because he (I can't bear to think his name) has sacrificed himself for a stranger doesn't mean that I will. It's a colour of defeat, a signal to say I have given up, that I will break, that I will let the devils in the ocean win.

I laugh. Because I am the devil of the seas, the one that rises, the one that calls everyone else out but herself and drags them back down to hell. And I shan't be defeated completely - not today. Not ever.

"I'll make you a deal," he says, as if I weren't wishing him away with looks that kill. (Why I am so terribly awful to people who are nothing but nice to me, I do not know. Perhaps that's why I let the currents carry me to him. I could not be with anyone but - it simply would not work.) "You take this and I'll take whatever punishment you think is appropriate for being a guy who's bad at caring and knowing things."

With a strike of my hand I snatch it away, and for some reason I find myself hurtling to the surface of what I once was, the Calypso Leto that everyone was so fond of screaming to be let our of her cage. "Your punishment," I snarl as I get to my feet and tower over him, "can be to never speak to me. Ever."

Send them away with words, that's the tattletale's duty. (Or in his case, with none at all.)

calypso leto.
People that pull my strings and push my buttons either end up dead or damn close to it. This kid is teetering over the edge of both even if he doesn't know it. Why I don't just get up and leave beats me, maybe I'm too tired to do anything but glower. Maybe, deep down, I enjoy the company. I think so, because when he gets up and walks away I feel both a sense of relief and as lonely as ever. Echoes can only provide so much before they fade out forever.

Say it back, say it back, say it...

My lips stay firmly shut and I burrow myself back down into a hole of self-hatred.

As I feel touch against my skin I flinch, caught off guard once again by this feverishly persistent stranger. Pencil-laced words are stuck all over my body and usually I'd smirk at his cleverness and bite back with something even sharper but he hasn't said a thing and neither have I. Ripping the pieces of paper from my skin I seethe at his grin and read the words inscribed to me. You're not the first person to try to shut me up. I grew up with three brothers. The last ones ring the longest: (We can play this game if you want.) But I always win.

Feverish hands collect the stupid little pieces of paper together and I rip them into strips, a multi-coloured confetti of my anger. (I always win my games too, but they involve destruction and deceit and opening my mouth. They'll think I've lost today and maybe I have, but I'm not going down without a fight.) If this is his game then he's playing dangerously, dancing with fire. After a reflection of myself I've come to the conclusion that I tend to surround myself with these types of people anyway, but isolation is the only form of wall that I need right now. Scattering the strips against the floor I twirl them around with my fingers, constructing a message of my very own. G, and then O, and the rest follow suit.

GO AWAY.