apogee; roan&jane

You surround yourself with extensions of perfection, you are the flawed one.

Extensions of perfection; the drawings pinned to your wall, the slow tick of your clock, the people you surround yourself with -- strip away the basis of brightness and they cross arbitrary boundaries, you watch Jane metamorphose into Rose, your paintings metamorphose into Jane and you can't help but smile. Strip away the basis of brightness, blonde becomes black, blue becomes green but it doesn't matter. Perfection is perfection, the color quickly becomes irrelevant.

Perhaps that's why you're talented; you piece yourself together and tell yourself you don't know what it means to break, you find blemishes in your skin and defections in every step -- but you never fail to smile at the end result of your coping mechanism. You never fail to smile at the storms you engrave across your canvas, the only pride you feel is at the sight of creativity splashed across your sketchbook and the labels Jane left on your colored palette.

You're a flawed thing lost in a forest of perfection, but no one tells you that you don't belong.

Afternoon sunlight breaks through your window, illuminating a storm splashed across a white canvas, and you can't help but squint at the time. Afternoon sunlight, a beacon that it's time to find Jane. Find the compass guiding a flawed thing across a damaged chasm; you close your eyes and try to imagine her.

You think that you could draw her if you tried.

In the privacy of your own room, surrounded by nothing but pictures and the steady sound of clockwork. Mechanics to a madness only seen in art; you shut your eyes and forget the time. Forget the afternoon beacon telling you that she'd be expecting you, waiting to pull you by your hand and will you to follow her into whatever madness she conjures from her dreams.

"I-- I can't see."

Strip away the basis of brightness and you're left with shapes but no shades.

It's frustrating, to care so genuinely about something vacant from the confines of your narrow understanding. To feel passion but never find the color, to want to be whole but never constantly find yourself reminded that anything you conjure will only ever be partial. A flawed thing will never belong in a forest of perfections, what a joke.

It's frightening, to realize how much you care and still realize there's nothing you can do about it.

It's frightening, to hunch yourself over your sketchbook and try to imagine what she would look like if you were the one that was whole.

It's frustrating that you can remember every detail, from the shape her hair makes when it's snatched by the wind's claws and the texture of her lips -lips that you've kissed more times than you can count- but still leave her confined to the same grey cage shared by the rest of the world. And you would give anything to find the key and let them all free, she know this, but you gave up long ago when doctors told you it was permanent.

Perhaps you and Jane share a similar madness, because you ignore the fear and bite through the frustration and continue to remember. Dark hair, pink lips, brown eyes.

Afternoon beacon fades, frustration festers; you continue to forget.

You trace the shapes, no that's wrong, and another page finds itself torn from your notebook before any semblance of creativity engraved in the page can bring itself to ignite. Snuffed by the same grey cage you lock them all in.

Two torn pages becomes three, three becomes five and five becomes a discarded pile thrown across the ground. Your fist meets the table and you sigh. "I'm trying," you mutter to yourself, picking up your pencil and putting lead to paper for a countless time and pressing it hard against a white backdrop. You're there, you're almost there and the lead trail you leave behind is perfect, from her neck to her jawline. "Dark hair, brown eyes, pink--"

(black stardust spreads itself across the white sky)

Propelled by frustration and suppressed tears, your broken pencil hits the wall opposite you.

A sudden knock against the door, you remember the afternoon beacon. For a second, you think that you're lost in a haze of ashen anger. That you're hearing things and that you're still alone, because you've isolated the world in a grey cage and lost the key to its beauty. No one's there, no one's here and there's nothing to find.

The knock repeats itself and you jerk yourself upright, that has to be her, she's here and you forgot because you're a flawed thing lost in a maze of perfection. This isn't a dream, not a haze of ashen frustration, and you heard correctly. You broke routine and left her waiting, a picture of her would've been the perfect gift.

You scramble from your chair, clutching your torn sketchbook to your chest, and swing your door wide open with wide eyes and a mechanical smile. "Jane --"

You see but you don't understand: dark hair, brown eyes, pink lips. You lose the fake smile.

You look down to your torn sketchbook and torn paper at your feet. A reminder that you're a flawed thing, a flawed thing that doesn't belong in this maze of perfection and its wonders. You catch her eyes and the need to justify yourself is a stronger pull than gravity.

"I'm so sorry, I just... got distracted."

Roan; a flawed thing that doesn't belong.

"Sorry."