we're the broken beauties / art x io {fox}

Red, like a crushed pomegranate, like strawberries that's been held too long in a closed fist.

I disguise the violence as something fruity and sickeningly saccharine so that I don't end up retching at the ruined altar of his feet. The nausea and the sickness rises as an evening tide would, reducing the world to a myriad of distorted shapes, of shadows and whiteness,

and I can feel my consciousness – slipping from the feeble grasp of the brain like wet rubber. 

“Untie him.”

“Yes, sir.” – because manners are crucial when you're addressing a mobster with a constellation of diamonds wrapped around each one of his veined fingers.

It's hard to endure the sting the two words delivers.

But, I do it anyways.

This boy is prettier when his face is all lilac with bruises; so, perhaps this isn't all bad. Perhaps some good can be discovered in tying someone down and beating them up senseless. 

  
Hands work and, albeit the tremors, they manage to undo the knot. His wrists are as tattered as the rest of his body and I grow curious, inquisitive, resisting the urge to probe further.

What kind of shit are pretty boys into these days?

Nothing pleasant, I'd suppose.

The boss leaves, but his sillage of exotic perfume and the smell of copper linger as if it is some sort of ghost, refusing to be exorcised.

I turn to the boy, feigning callousness because it's not cool to care about someone else's feelings.

“You didn't snitch.”

Should have.

“Following some prestigious code of silence?”

“I didn't know they paid you to keep their dead meat company.”

A scoff is exhaled past my lips – a rapture of air, reciprocal derision. He seems pretty cocked up for someone who was just beaten; perhaps I should give burial to my guilt after all.

Pretty boys aren't the kindest, with their lilac bruises, waterfalls of pomegranate juice and untamed cockiness.

“What are you gonna do if I decide to die right here?” He says it like it's a threat and I can now envisage how he got himself here. Pretty boys, with their poison-coated words and faux fur skin. 

“I don't want a jerk's death on my ledger.” A slip of fingers down my pocket fishes out an ineptly rolled cigarette. The lighter kisses it and soon, I am making smoke circles at his face. It could be a romantic gesture if he wasn't all damaged goods.

A palm outstretches towards him.

“Get up.”