love around the edges / kieran & paige

In her softest moments, she is terribly hard on herself. She knows that it’s a process, reminds herself that it takes time for a wound to close, but she stares down at the red staining her fingers. She trades self sabotage for a paintbrush. Pushes down the grim realization that she erased herself from her first child’s life, only to give herself back with the arrival of the second, and the third, painting little exotic animals she’s studied relentlessly from a Capitol magazine she swiped from Kieran’s study. She’s trying. For the first time, perhaps the last time, she is trying so desperately to move forward.

Over her shoulder, her worst mistakes state back at her.

Failure of a daughter, sister, wife, mother, all while being blocked from the truth. Because all of her victims love her, save for herself, and it’s like birds eating from the palm of a burning hand. She ruins. She doesn’t know how to do anything more than live like a spark igniting. But what follows the flash bang? She chokes on dead smoke like an aftertaste. And in those shadows, she wraps her arms around the love of her life, her anchor, her siren call in the deep sea. It’s not drowning when it feels so much like the first time she’s allowing herself to breathe. If anyone deserves her whole, it’s him, and their children, and she will paint over every wall of herself if that’s what it takes. She urges herself to realize it’s not a betrayal.

”Our perfect angels haven’t packed a thing with all this playing, but Mom’s got it covered. It’s just me and you left, actually.” in the ceaseless night, their memories meet, lantern to love to / what follows the boom? She is a woman made of aftermaths. ”Meet me in the bedroom. I’m looking for your perspective on something.”

On all things. North Star of a boy.