spectrum {justice + poppy}

I feel like shit. Heart sunk into the pit of my stomach, head throbbing and the taste of expensive wine has settled upon the tip of my tongue. I'm hungover and scared but it's warm, body pressed into another. It's peaceful and sweet and something so precious that I fear opening my eyes will ruin it all. Illusion broken not by waking nightmares, paralysis and figments creeping from the confines of a cracking skull, but by a reality that will not simply fade away.

It's not like I didn't know this was a mistake. My friendships are like broken glass, gathered in shaking palms; excruciating as it becomes to hold them together I think it'd hurt much more to let go. So blood pools and tears fall and yet I cannot keep a smile off of my lips. I've not been through half the things he has- and I don't think I'll ever be able to understand what that does to a person.

But he has a heartbeat. Same as me. He has nightmares, same as me. It's easy to hate a career, a victor, a man no doubt adored by his family for bringing glory to a stupid fucking name. It's easy to assume that humanity is lost within someone who killed to save himself. It's easy to idolize him for the same.

I like Justice for Justice. Stupid jokes and bravado included. He is so much bigger than I'll ever hope to be, a mascot with marionette strings made from solid gold. Beautiful for more than his face, ruined not by his missing leg but by the pieces of his heart left in that arena. Shattered and stomped and beyond repair. Just like he's learned to live without his leg, he has to learn to live without them.

But I don't think he's figured out how to do that yet. Instead he gives himself away to just about anyone who will have him. I guess I'm a prime example of that now, a nobody washed out career with a shitty family and a brother eager to throw himself into the games to prove he's just as strong and heroic as Justice Fray.

So I open my eyes under no illusion that this was anything out of the normal for him. That I am anything but routine.

He looks the best when he's peaceful. Without strain or sadness, fast asleep as I falter and break in the only way I know how:

silence.

Part of me wants to run. Hope that maybe he won't remember a thing and that I can undo a mistake that I know deep down cannot be undone. It was my choice, my idea. The consequence bears down on me and its easier to hide my face within his chest instead of dealing with it all now, more sober and worse off than I was before.

I can feel bitter tears, hidden behind my eyes and pounding against the sides of my temple. They are trapped, like me, within a happiness that could only ever be temporary. Because I try to tell myself that he is nothing special- that my heart will not break the moment this is all over and I am no longer a thing to chase but something old and used.

He can tell me all he wants that it's not like that - that he is not like that - actions will always speak louder than words. No matter how the morning ends, I know nothing will ever be the same. And I wish more than anything that I could be just like him. Dependent on the physical and void of attachment.

They're just men- just bodies. Pleasure and fun and everything that humanity was born to crave.

But I know myself better than that.

Part of me wonders if Justice does too.

"Good morning, sunshine." I talk against his skin, burying myself further into a temporary haven. "I'd cook you breakfast but this house is far too nice to be burnt to the ground."

We're both fake, I'm just better at pretending.

table by zoë