aries; d7, fin

I wake up to the sound of bird song.

A rose wilts, watches the world disintegrate around it, and there's an envy to be found in the ending of cycles as mine begins. A reverse twilight; this is a sight I've grown far too used to. Light spilling over pine trees and oak floorboards, weeping through glass windows and clutching my skin. There's a security to be found in repetition, and itch to watch it break, and I find myself dragging tired feet along with tangled hair and the back of my hand across heavy eyelids.

Vacant eyes, mouth open with exhaustion; boring, they're all boring.

I bury steel in splinters, muscles twitch and drive the rise and fall of an axe that only seems to dull with each sigh of frustration that leaves lips loosened by frustration. Age seven, a father with eyes mismatched from mine and eyes heavy with pity pressed a knife into hands stripped from care and told me to carve. "It'll make a man out of you." He said with certainty. I nodded and downed the poison they dressed with a drink they called maturity.

Age fifteen and he took the knife from my hand and placed an axe in my hand; new needs could only be met with new poison. Eyes vacant from the clutches of care, I nodded and downed the poison given because it was nice to die to a new taste.

I suppose, between carving my name into wood and halving stumps, I was searching for a way to scream silent nothingness into a netherworld seen through the eyes of a four year old. I always wondered why I saw winding trees bathed in bright scarlet and saw skeletons in the grass before I woke up in anxious sweat. Fast forward two years and I posed the question to my adopted mother and she made her initial response habitual behavior, running her fingers through my hair and telling me my mind was playing tricks on me before shooting a nervous glance at my father.

Fast forward another year and a countless number of imaginary friends seen as shades in the dark, broken limbs after falling from trees and more nights woken in anxious sweat; my adopted father decides the solution is to be found at the edge of a blunted pocket knife as opposed to a comforting hand -- ("it'll make a man out of you.")

Because no more talking to shadows stretching across the edge of my bed, no more naming stars as they fell and avoiding my younger brother because he asked who I was talking to one night. I think I just had an overactive imagination; saw a black and white world in one-too-many colours so I caged myself behind metallic bars because no one's supposed to break the magic. Skeletons in the red forest can't fit their rib cages through walls constructed from the fabrics of my own mind.

Yeah, carving my initials into wood certainly made a man of me alright.

Fast forward to age ten and I'm still struggling to read. A frustrated grunt and another book projected across the rooms; I left one too many i's undotted and one too many t's uncrossed for this just to be a late-learner thing. Age ten and I was filling in gaps as Ares Paralax and my mother would add in the missing i and the missing l. It happened one too many times for her to keep smiling through it. "I'm just shit at this."

Dark words never stopped blurring across white pages; I see the world in too much colour. Much more difficult than carving my initials into blocks of wood and trees. Pages bleed melancholy as my stuttering tongue bleeds failure -- each sentence is a fuck-up from start to finish.

I never hesitated to punch my brother in the ribs if he tried to make a mockery of my situation, never stopped to think of the consequences before I shoved someone over for calling me an idiot. Never cared when I got suspended, my childhood tantrums sounded like war cries and the bruises left across the expanse of my knuckles stopped hurting after telling myself it was the story and snarky smirk that counted.

Fuck me, dyslexia is a bitch.

Age fifteen -- I trade a knife to whittle wood for an axe to split tree stumps. I become a boy of habitual behavior and irrational logic, splitting wood come daylight and smoking joints come twilight. I have no obligation to fill to anyone but myself and I decide that downing poisons is better than sitting at the table and fumbling over my words and finding mockery for the simple sin of miss spelling.

Seconds blur to years, splitting wood come morning becomes as therapeutic as sporadic sex come evening; I live for moments and run on impulse. No more twirling the whittling knife between my fingers but setting the lumber axe on the rack with a splinter to speak for my carelessness. I'm not one for big words and finer things, so I find solace in the physical. Impulsive pleasures and broken knuckles, I am not a long term thinker. Bruised skin and love bites buried into the crook of a neck, I think I've found the sun.

Screaming into a netherworld of in-between and red forests, nightmares at four years old have a strange way of resurfacing. I know better than to ask my adopted mother what it means because my father always presses the hatchet handle in my palm and tells me to make a man of myself. "Okay."

I find comfort in the eyes vacant from my reflection, a smile so far removed from mine and eyes that don't match me and my brother's. I don't know what happened to our real parents, don't know what happened to the womb we came from or the man that fathered us -- I don't remember. I shut my eyes, allow myself to blink, and then I'm here. Housed by lumberjacks with no resemblance to me. Not the tinge of color in my skin or the dark curls falling down my forehead. My dark eyes stare at their blue eyes and I remind myself what it means to never find the sun.

Maturity comes, skin bruises and knuckles swell. Rough hands and calloused palms, reminds me of pine and oak. Dead skin peeling from fingertips and flesh scarred from fingers and slip ups, I've become a walking declaration of mishaps and elusive blades. One thing we share in common, I suppose.

It's a tragedy, how I'm at war to the face closest to my reflection. It's strange, how one bruise too many and one bloody knuckle as the end result of a word out of line can set two brothers at each other's throats for a life time. Ophiuchus has always been a cunt, and I've wanted to bloody his nose from the first snide remark and ill-timed sense of humor. That's the gift of being so amoral, I won't cry when I lay a rose on his bed.

I wake up to the sound of birdsong and scream into a netherworld of the in-between and red forests; I cannot find the sun.