running on fumes [phoenix/moria]
May 11, 2018 15:45:13 GMT -5
Post by kousei ♚ on May 11, 2018 15:45:13 GMT -5
P H O E N I X
► ► ►
Cigarette burns and red stardust, I tend too close to the sun.
I rise from soft ash, white sheets tangled with my skin, coiled around my fingers and a porcelain hand through dry hair. There's a bullet in my temple, iron spatter across the ground and a harsh throb pulling at every sinew and muscle like a needle at loose thread; I think it hurts. But I don't bend, let alone break, I rub my eyes and wear the same smile, run the same shower and bury my heart beneath the same clothes. Stare at the same porcelain expanse across the ground and step across creaking floorboards as if they're fragile, as if they can cut my feet.
I'm treading on thin ice, tending closer to the sun with each cyclic pulse. Fuck me, this is what it means to be numb to a caustic cycle; rising from ashes with a bullet in my temple and telling myself today will be different just because I saw a different color in the lifeline. That I haven't read this story before, when the absence of coke hits me harder than a titan with a hammer and I'm left groaning and complaining. Begging for the embrace of chemical rage and the shelter of their storm. "That's why you don't snort it all at once."
Thing is, for a bright guy, I've always been shit at learning my lesson.
Come evening, I'm faced with cigarette smoke and dark eyes. My boss smiles and shoves a wallet full of cash in my hands. "The usual, and you can have your half bag." And like a dog I take it, confident grin carved across my porcelain skin and lips parted to utter a single word that fills the space between us faster than the factory smoke killing his lungs.
"Thanks."
Black bag and pocket knife thumping against my thigh, I'm sent off. Defined by the poisons they feed me and the toxins they call a reward, I'm worth no more than half a bag. Guess I should count myself lucky. Most fuckers my age ain't worth shit.
I'm numb to the caustic cycle, hitting the ground because I'm meant to be dead and telling myself it's rebirth when I wake up with a red bullet in my temple and ashes on my skin. Tell myself that I'm deaf to the echo of my own footsteps sending themselves across an otherwise silent street. An expanse of darkness covers the district and I tell myself that it's better this way. A glance to the left and it's empty street shrouded by a black cloak, my neck lazily cranes itself to the right and I'm facing a mirror image of what I had seen previously. Crane my neck up and celestial orbs burn white holes in the black sky.
Skip ten minutes, I follow an orbit without sun. Form taken by a shadow, darkness becomes my new skin. I duck behind back alleys and step over broken bottles and piss stains on grey concrete. This is a route I've gone through a thousand times, a memory burned at a level deeper than my own skin and branded into my mine. It runs deeper than a bullet wound, it becomes an escape route seen through the eye of the needle. Crystalline lattice powdering my nose, the phantom sensation's taken me before I've even entered the building.
Pocket knife against thigh, wallet heavy with cash and black rucksack against my back; she knows I'm not here for bread.
I've been a regular here since I was twelve, ordering an unholy amount of gear and distributing it around my bosses' warehouses or taking it back home to be counted. This bakery's seen my baby face, wide eyes and nervous smile as I handed them cash, and seen the transformation into a figure worth seeing. Cocky grin and a smart-ass look.
The bakery's an empty shell of itself tonight, good. Abandoned for the night, no kids running in here for pastries, no one can see us in here. The wolves can come out to play.
Left hand and porcelain nails scratch the back of my neck, I smile at the golden girl at the counter.
Not the worst person to get fucked by, I suppose. "You know what I'm here for, yeah?" I take out the wallet and slide the cash across the counter. "However much this gets me," then the thought hits me, crosses my mind in simple passing like lightning through nickel skin. I smile again, knowingly tending too close to the surface of the sun. "Or, y'know, a bit more if I can get you in a good enough mood."
For a smart guy, I've always been shit at learning my lesson.
(I don't know how to burn)
I rise from soft ash, white sheets tangled with my skin, coiled around my fingers and a porcelain hand through dry hair. There's a bullet in my temple, iron spatter across the ground and a harsh throb pulling at every sinew and muscle like a needle at loose thread; I think it hurts. But I don't bend, let alone break, I rub my eyes and wear the same smile, run the same shower and bury my heart beneath the same clothes. Stare at the same porcelain expanse across the ground and step across creaking floorboards as if they're fragile, as if they can cut my feet.
I'm treading on thin ice, tending closer to the sun with each cyclic pulse. Fuck me, this is what it means to be numb to a caustic cycle; rising from ashes with a bullet in my temple and telling myself today will be different just because I saw a different color in the lifeline. That I haven't read this story before, when the absence of coke hits me harder than a titan with a hammer and I'm left groaning and complaining. Begging for the embrace of chemical rage and the shelter of their storm. "That's why you don't snort it all at once."
Thing is, for a bright guy, I've always been shit at learning my lesson.
Come evening, I'm faced with cigarette smoke and dark eyes. My boss smiles and shoves a wallet full of cash in my hands. "The usual, and you can have your half bag." And like a dog I take it, confident grin carved across my porcelain skin and lips parted to utter a single word that fills the space between us faster than the factory smoke killing his lungs.
"Thanks."
Black bag and pocket knife thumping against my thigh, I'm sent off. Defined by the poisons they feed me and the toxins they call a reward, I'm worth no more than half a bag. Guess I should count myself lucky. Most fuckers my age ain't worth shit.
I'm numb to the caustic cycle, hitting the ground because I'm meant to be dead and telling myself it's rebirth when I wake up with a red bullet in my temple and ashes on my skin. Tell myself that I'm deaf to the echo of my own footsteps sending themselves across an otherwise silent street. An expanse of darkness covers the district and I tell myself that it's better this way. A glance to the left and it's empty street shrouded by a black cloak, my neck lazily cranes itself to the right and I'm facing a mirror image of what I had seen previously. Crane my neck up and celestial orbs burn white holes in the black sky.
Skip ten minutes, I follow an orbit without sun. Form taken by a shadow, darkness becomes my new skin. I duck behind back alleys and step over broken bottles and piss stains on grey concrete. This is a route I've gone through a thousand times, a memory burned at a level deeper than my own skin and branded into my mine. It runs deeper than a bullet wound, it becomes an escape route seen through the eye of the needle. Crystalline lattice powdering my nose, the phantom sensation's taken me before I've even entered the building.
Pocket knife against thigh, wallet heavy with cash and black rucksack against my back; she knows I'm not here for bread.
I've been a regular here since I was twelve, ordering an unholy amount of gear and distributing it around my bosses' warehouses or taking it back home to be counted. This bakery's seen my baby face, wide eyes and nervous smile as I handed them cash, and seen the transformation into a figure worth seeing. Cocky grin and a smart-ass look.
The bakery's an empty shell of itself tonight, good. Abandoned for the night, no kids running in here for pastries, no one can see us in here. The wolves can come out to play.
Left hand and porcelain nails scratch the back of my neck, I smile at the golden girl at the counter.
(Could probably kick my ass)
Not the worst person to get fucked by, I suppose. "You know what I'm here for, yeah?" I take out the wallet and slide the cash across the counter. "However much this gets me," then the thought hits me, crosses my mind in simple passing like lightning through nickel skin. I smile again, knowingly tending too close to the surface of the sun. "Or, y'know, a bit more if I can get you in a good enough mood."
For a smart guy, I've always been shit at learning my lesson.
