daybed [little bill day 2]

Little Bill falls to his knees, her limp body still in his hand, and he cries.

He doesn’t know how to unfurl his fingers from around her vine-like tail, can’t find the words inside to assuage the immediate onset of reality — that he has killed something for reasons other than sustenance, that he’s gone against all he’s held dear. His back shakes and he clenches his fist tighter, sobs heaving from his chest like unearthed boulders, and he cries for years spent bottled. His bottom lip protrudes, his nose wrinkles.

Time passes him like the wind.

His eye hangs on the growing pool of blood beneath her. There’s a drip, drip, drip that lulls him away, and he closes his eye only to see Absalom’s mouth, his lips curled at both ends, his wide shoulders and bulging chest —

He stands up, runs inside a hut, and curls up like Abs’s smile.