monomania | by tati.
Oct 6, 2023 17:02:00 GMT -5
Post by Azalea on Oct 6, 2023 17:02:00 GMT -5
tati pelotte
I've got an empty gaze.
(but it's only when I look at him.)
. . .
The strangers that usher me from place to place whisper dangerous lullabies into my ear that are laced with Lux's name. I try to smile and nod, play the nice girl, but her name bites at me like an insect. The numbness makes it impossible to feel for a few moments, but then comes the itch that cannot be scratched, worming its way around my mind until I am fixated on her. I do not want to become heavy with her dead weight, but her presence is inescapable, and she feels less like a ghost these days and more like a demon: more relentless than ever, she reminds me of how much it hurts to grieve.
Even in death, our bond is unbroken, albeit bloodied.
I catch a glimpse of the television coverage from today and catch a glimpse of something worse than Lux; there's a peacefulness in his face that cannot be replicated by a cold corpse, and he holds himself as a fully actualised person who has been given the opportunity to live, to dream and to be free. The wounds of grief never really heal no matter how much salve is rubbed onto them, and any stitches just sink into the abyss that keeps spitting blood into your face. Seeing him feels like someone shoving sharpened fingernails into that corner of my blood and tearing it open — everything begins to unravel. One step forward becomes two step back and I am placed in the same emotional state that held me prisoner for so long.
It feels too real now that this is my reality. It feels too real because Teddy Ursa will no longer be restricted to the pixels I've burdened him with for so long — he lives and breathes in the same way that I do, except without fear.
I realise that my fixation on Lux may be the lesser of two evils. His image burns through my mind and I can't help but fan the flames and watch it all burn; it's pretty in the most morbid way. That serial killer is somebody's friend, mentor, idol and love. He is nothing and everything at the same time but I can't understand how. How and why do I not feel intense hatred for the person who read my sister's sentence like it was poetry?
The television stops showing his picture. His face morphs into a new set of pixels but I can't stop staring at the screen. All I can think about is how I feel nothing towards him — not an ounce of desperation, I am not seeing red and do not seek revenge for what he did. It's the deepest kind of nothing I have ever felt, it is bottomless and eternal, eerie as much as it is inviting.
(and I want to fall into it, completely, but nothing lasts forever.)
His face is replaced by my own. The girl from Four who smiles no matter what, waving to the people who cheer for her. I realise that they do not cheer for me, they do not even know me, but they cheer for Lux, and as sick as that is, that makes me feel safe. If all I am ever going to be is just an extension of her, then I'll seek that safety whenever and wherever I can.
I am frozen in place when I realise that we may cross paths. We are both here, harmless and harmful, two endings to the same story, two parts of the same whole. I think my heart skips a beat, but I can't really tell because when I try to count, I say his name over and over again.
There's not even an escape from this feeling. I don't even know if the greatest authors could write this away.
I remind myself that acceptance is the first step, but is compulsion really the second?
He is the ghost and I am the machine.
