bones and flesh | {shelby/erastus} blitz

I seem only to know love when it leaves me.

He had been bright as the sun, vibrant and heated and unapologetic. He had been the fire burning in my veins repressed by cold grievances. When he told me that he loved me, I had no choice but to believe him because he was the first person to make me feel like anything more than a shadow. He could not love me if I did not exist, so with this promise in my palm I clung to the theoretical idea that somehow I was still here.

That night, I fell asleep next to a man who gave me more than I knew I deserved.

I woke up to exactly what was deserved and mine.

Empty sheets and torn clothing he had left behind the only trace I could manage to leave without remorse. I suppose if he had loved me, I would have been devastated, like the foundation of a home shook by the storm just outside its window. Instead, I felt like nothing more than a frame of a window with the glass knocked out— useless and dangerous and unwanted.

Change of heart and mind meant nothing to a soul shattered.

Mimicking the scene of a crime left unattended I wrapped the sheet around my body and stepped out into the winter air. Spine rattled and splintered I treaded with bare feet over gravel roads and regret. When I had left my home, I had fled past Cha Leviane’s place of choice without second thought, but I now found myself drawn to her side to ask her where I had gone wrong.

She offered no answer to my anger.

Believed to be sentenced to silence, I sit with my back to the world and eyes shut. His voice is not quite redemption, but not quite a death sentence, asking me if I was a murderer. I pause, do not turn to face him, and muse out loud, “I do not think I have killed anyone yet, but that does not mean I am not capable of it.”