cyrus wright. capitol. fin.

cyrus wright. capitol. fin. Sept 16, 2017 23:20:39 GMT -5

Post by calla on Sept 16, 2017 23:20:39 GMT -5

You meet him at a party.

And it happens quickly, water to wine like something holy.

There are people dressed in silk and lace and chiffon and a dozen other fabrics you can't name, their left shoe probably worth more than your life savings.

He's all faux fur and tacky rings, standing out and blending seamlessly in a way that you wish you could. The north star, bright and unmoving and untouchable by humanity. You sit in the corner instead, hands in your lap, and smile shyly when he gives you his coat.

It's gravitational, the thing between you and he says your name like a gospel prayer, c y r u s, over and over. He says you're pretty and pouts about your cheekbones, your full lips and your dark eyes until you kiss him and his lips taste like wine.

You were born in your mother's bed and are reborn in his.

You get caught up in his lifestyle, flashing lights and snakes in the grass, he flicks glitter at you when you turn your head and you pretend to complain when it gets everywhere. His friends call you arm candy because they don't know about the strips of photo booth pictures tacked on the wall like fragile moth wings. They don't know how you cocoon him with heavy blankets when he stumbles home too late, or how he writes poems in the early morning about the stars in your eyes.

You share a room that's littered with expensive shoes and fake pearls, but there's a balcony big enough for the two of you to sit and watch the world together, and that's all that really matters. A haven in the midst of chaos, there's always sugar in the cupboard because you like your coffee sweeter than he does. He tells you that you use an unhealthy amount of it, but you know he has his own addictions.

Neither of you try to make the other cut back.

You tell him that you don't smoke and he throws out his cigarettes.

You tell him that you don't use drugs and he takes you out for dinner.

His hair turns from green to blue, a kaleidoscope in front of your eyes and he kisses your neck when your hands run through it.

The bed is never made and his idea of cleaning is kicking dirty laundry into the closet but it feels more like home than anything ever has. Leaving home never got you very far anyways, and you'd rather live in a single room with endless take out than an old mansion with gourmet if it meant being with him.

On your eighteenth birthday he brings you a little cake with strawberries on it and you tease him about it for weeks. You don't make a wish when the candle flickers out, because what more could you need than the steady breathing that lies in the bed beside you?

Almost a year to the day of your meeting he whispers an I love you into the warmth of your neck and you only spare a half moment to think of the money he keeps under a loose floorboard beside the window before you're saying it back.

"You'll have me forever." He says.

And you believe it.

In another world maybe, he keeps his promises and his fur coat and leaves your heart behind in one piece.

But you wish that you could go back because in this world, you hear the news before you even realize he's left. Veins filled with poison and hands frozen over so that they don't feel like his, you scream his name from a balcony with a broken railing and try not to trip.

You hide away in his room, long after his scent has left the clothes that you still wear. Telling yourself that it was an accident, a mistake, because he promised not to leave, never to leave. Silence and covered windows, fingers idly pry open the blinds to let moon light strike the scuffed floor where he pushed the table against the wall and taught you how to dance.

You spend your twentieth birthday in the bathtub with an empty bottle.

The bathroom still smells like the strawberry shampoo that you used to hate. Sitting in a bottle beside the sink where he dyed his hair and tried to get you to do the same.

"We can match." He says, excitement like a child's and you laugh with him when it comes out all wrong, your head looks like it's wrapped with cotton floss and he helps you wash it out. The floor gets wet and slippery from the amount of water you throw at each other, but you both laugh so much that you don't notice.

You have friends, or people you can almost call friends, but it's been so long you can't remember how they take their coffee or how they spell their names. The phone rings on for hours until you rip it from the wall, throwing it from the balcony and shutting the door before you can follow it down.

You scratch up the door frame with a kitchen knife, marring the lines that marked your heights, jokes at the time because you've always been the tiny one and he liked to tease you about it.

With bright eyes and legs tangled in soft sheets, he once traced poems onto your back and you would whisper them against his lips.

"You'll have me forever." He said.

And you believed him.