Ares Calloway [D1] {WIP}

{I don’t know much about your life beyond these warm walls
The fleeting sense of love within these God forsaken homes
And I can hear it in his voice, in every call;
"This girl who slept a hundred years has something, lift the wall"}

I miss the crippled angel and oh how she sung.

In hindsight, it's foolish of me to look back at fabrications that embody everything I'm supposed to never dare to be that I weaved in my dreams with such nostalgia. It seemed almost innocent at first, a broken girl with clipped wings sat within my personal purgatory with such confidence I almost mistook her for a queen at first glance. Crimson her crown and limbo her kingdom, she brought with her a sense of tranquility when she opened her mouth and let herself sing; yet the first harmonic blurred with the second and I could not distinguish the tune from silence.

She was a perfect paradox, she brought with her a sense of perfection and carried herself above even the mightiest of kings and prettiest of queens; she carried herself like a star and yet it was impossible for her to be the personification of such a perfection. It only took squinted eyes and a ten second glance for the painfully obvious clipped white wings to become obvious and within the forefront of my mind. Something so broken could never be so perfect -- it made no sense and yet I just accepted it.

I could never hold a hand and out and run my hands through the bleeding wounds where the remainder of her wings sat. I could never run a hand across her trembling skin and tell her it would be okay, I could only watch and listen and she just let me.

("My son is alive!")

Spun within the crevice of my mind yet shattered by my mother's voice, the perfect paradox was revealed to be a falsification created in the absence of consciousness. I was torn from the tranquility of purgatory and thrust into the presence of hospital machines and the apathetic doctors stood around the hospital bed. And yet every face was a blur, none of them recognized beyond the fact they were relieved and I couldn't figure out why.

I still feel as if the world rests upon knife's edge when I glare into the mirror, comparing what I see in the moment to what I see in the pictures. They tell me I'm that person because we're blessed with the same features.

Dark brown hair cut to medium length, apparently my mom kept coming in and cutting my hair the way I always liked it. Dark facial hair dresses my strong jawline, slightly longer than in the picture but still there, it was once only a stubble in the pictures, barely noticeable. Guess I my mother didn't mind the beard, neither do I to be fair -- I decide it can stay, I think I like it.

All I have to attach to myself are these dark brown eyes and this picture. I've lost weight, definitely lost weight compared to the picture and my Dad doesn't like it, he says he's happy I'm alive but hopes the coma hasn't made me soft (yet who is he to tell me what to do? I only met him in the hospital). Yet all I have of my old self is this picture, I trace the outline of myself with my fingernail, squint at the small details with my eyes because I'm counting similarities and differences notched against the wall. I don't know how tall I was then but the doctors said I'm six foot exactly now, I'm not the tallest one but I'm certainly not the shortest in the career center.

It felt strange holding a spear at first, everything just seemed to balance wrong.

The trainer told me welcome back even though I've only just met him but I just get right back to practicing. The technique's natural, like breathing even, but the trainer didn't think it was good. He said my aim used to be better, whenever my spear would skin shallow -too shallow to draw cannon fire- and then he'd scoff at me when I said I'm trying. "You would've tried harder than this before the coma."

For three months my reality was purgatory, now it's weapons and fake blood arching through the air.

I miss it in all honesty, the crippled angel standing in the field of white who sung but was never heard, who was riddled with beautiful imperfections, I'll even admit she was pretty. I miss it because it was abstract and if I was a prisoner then what better prison to fall victim to than the confines of your own mind?

When I walk the world may as well be on knife's edge, I stand upon cracked pillars and shaky foundations -- I do not dare question what happens when the platform holding me to new heights just shatters, fragile ambitions and all.

I do not know what I want, I only know what these strangers tell me I wanted.