into the sunrise — amos.
Oct 5, 2019 21:25:46 GMT -5
Post by tick 12a / calla on Oct 5, 2019 21:25:46 GMT -5
A M O S
sometime in late winter,
after
the eighty-second,
when nine is blanketed
with ice and something
sinister,
pax runs in and
i can feel the
blood
drain from my face.
i can feel
how
it sticks to my hands
when he stumbles and
lands bodily
like a fallen tree.
he is
burnt red,
like liquid fire,
spilled wine,
the worst kind of
love.
he is
three scores,
one through,
a clean cut
like a phantom cross.
he is a calling card.
and i know,
right away,
where it came from.
(i used to carve it into the
empty
coffins.)
there's a static noise
stuck somewhere
between my skull and my
soul.
and
i'm drowning
all over again,
hollow lunged,
weak.
it's deafening
but
eventually
i look up and
pax
is watching
my fingers,
how they
shake
against his skin and
how his
blood
gathers under my nails
(the closest we've ever been)
"it's my fault."
i tell him
but
he doesn't ask
what i mean.
he knows.
he knows.
—
the bricks are still cracked
in the alley where we first met,
when there was
a bullet
buried beside my head.
just a hairsbreadth.
a warning.
because i've always been
trouble,
karma's bitch,
death's son,
amos.
and i could never breathe quite right.
i was
born in a rival gang,
in a bathtub,
in a body already trying to drown
itself.
and they tried,
they tried
to tell me she was already dead,
but i knew,
i knew.
and
suddenly
there was a hit out on me,
dead or alive,
after i figured out
that i could switch sides and
bite the hands that
fed me.
after i wandered back
into the wrong side of nine
as a traitor,
full of grandeur,
and started trouble
like i could end it.
i've always had a
knack
for being in places i
shouldn't be.
and i can still feel the cold
sometimes
because
i never learnt how to swim
on the streets.
but i learnt how to
float.
how to survive.
i went back home
once.
just to see what was left.
there was nothing but
water-stains,
three years worth of
memories
that came
rising
to the surface like pond scum.
i remember
stabbing the boss's son,
because
i
heard
he was the dealer
that got mom started on whatever killed her.
and
when he tried to return the favour
i ran like hell,
straight into
him.
and i can still feel
an arterial spray,
my world crashing down,
the glint of a morning star,
pax.
i can still feel
when i was the dirt under his shoe
and how he
saved my life
when
it wasn't worth all that much.
—
when it's finally hot enough outside
for the streetlights to melt,
there's a scar on his side.
"i'll get it inked"
he says
like it's that easy to cover.
to hide.
but
i still trace the lines over his
ribcage,
imagine them all red and
gaping.
imagine what it would've been like
if i had stayed and
we
ended up on
opposite sides.
"it's my fault."
i tell him
again
and again
and again
( what's wrong with me. )
but he knows.
he knows.
(trouble.)
