paisley hart { five } finished

I used to play the piano.

Old, crumbling thing with rotten wood and out-of-tune keys - once beautiful. Time heals, and time destroys - both slowly. It sat in our basement and my tiny feet went from dangling in the air to flat on the ground below, little tunes to melodies to symphonies.

Sam used to dance-

We don't talk about that.

The piano. Collecting dust below my bed, memories floating up through the floorboards and ceiling and the line that separates the two. My fingers still find keys but they're the lock kind, the door kind, the sneak-into-someone-elses-home kind. Porches and plant pots and I find that people are so unbelievably predictable it makes me shake with laughter.

My mother adores us. Poppy and I, the apples of her eye, the center of her universe. Anything we want. Anything at all, and it's ours. Psycho, right? I bend her so much I'm waiting for the day she snaps underneath the weight of my little finger - so far so good. She's rocky and easily upset but wouldn't ever dream of denying us anything and everything we desire. Not that we want much. But I never understood why she didn't adore-

Never mind.

I wonder if bodies rot like old pianos.

The keys don't make sounds anymore. My fingers hovered over them for a while. Never pressing down. I think I was scared of what I'd hear. Or rather, what I wouldn't hear. But I would always find myself standing still in front of it as the sun set, transfixed, smelling damp wood and tracing patterns against the dusty gray-scale of my past. Chance. A dare. Plummet or fly.

And so, because I am me and just like her - I took the chance.

Silence followed.

Heart plummets.

I don't know why that makes me sad.

When that bitch from District One stabbed her through the heart I caved into Poppy and cried and cried and cried until my grief spread across her midnight-coloured blouse and then I cried some more.

She didn't cry once. Not at all. She held me with rigid arms (but she's always been still), kissed the top of my head with threadbare lips, told me it was okay to cry.

White-hot, angry, broken.

I felt that sword pierce my own.

I'll kill her I'll kill her I'll kill her I'll kill her I'll kill her I'll kill her "I'll kill her I'll kill her I'll kill her I'll kill her I'LL KILL HER I'LL KILL HER I'LL KILL HER-"

"I'll help," Poppy whispered.

Four letters over my heart, tears drifted down my cheek as the needle spilled ink into my skin.

I haven't cried since.