Grief

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Burn away, fire. Burn away and take all that there is to burn. Let it char, let it singe, let it twist from hurt and blood into ashes.


Let it burn.


Who shall I burn?


Let's start with Velvet. Never known, never touched, a faint shadow in Rex's eyes. 'A crazy bitch' he called her and I like her for that already. I tied a ribbon at the Crossbones her already, red as blood and another as black as night. Give her a feather and let her fly free.


Who else?


Satrap Sam perhaps, who made Rex smile. Big and bright and fat with money and I liked him for what he was. Another feather, to speed him on his way, to heaven or hell. Should I add in a feather for Aidan, who slid his arms around me in the kitchen after a long night at a nightclub and told me about the wife he had lost, with his breath stinking of beer? Deyanira who made me a cake with no calories for a birthday that I hadn't expected anyone to give a damn about except me, and who could lift me over her head on the night we went dancing to fifties swing?

I don't have enough feathers to spare. I give them anyway. It's all I have that seems to matter now. Give them a part of my soul and hope it's enough.


Rex's arms are around me, one cool enamel cheek resting against my forehead. Don't die, Rex. Not for love, or money, or oaths. Don't go out into the dark without me. I won't be human without you. Not now. Not with so little of my heart left to break.


More wood for the fire. Burn strong, burn bright. Give me light. Give me warmth. The smoke makes my eyes sting and I'm glad. I don't want to cry for the dead. They made their choices, and walked their path to the end and that's their right. That's something to celebrate. Better by far die young with all the glorious certainty of freedom still on you than live a grey tinged life of disappointment and compromise. I won't cry.


And I'm glad that the smoke gets in my eyes.


Rex wraps his arms around me and the waves crash on the sand.


Who now?


Now the deaths that matter, and for the first time I am faltering because I don't want these lives to end, for these souls to go free.


I don't want to say goodbye to Lorica, who made me smile and cleaned up my vomit from his shoes without a single reproachful comment, simply because he was my friend. I don't want to let go, to accept that I'll never call him at 2 am to tell him that I've done something dumb and can we please go to the pub so that he can look despairing at me again.


I don't want to say goodbye to Constantin, who taught me how to move my hips when I danced so that others would think of sex, and who always tasted of absinthe to me. I don't want to lose my devil, my curse, my love, my hate. I don't want that crooked smile to turn to ash, my chains to rust away. Not when they felt so much like a caress for so very long.


I don't want to say goodbye to Moorcroft, bright and beautiful. The tears are welling up now and I want to kick the fire out, scatter its horrible remorseless flames. I want to scream and shout and I told him that I wasn't through with him, so how can he die?


I don't want to say goodbye to MacKenzie.


Rex is talking again now, his voice as warm as brandy. Words words words. Rex is good with words. We talk too much these days. I miss the old days when we talked with knives and blood and semen. That's how I'll end tonight I think. Remember the old days when it wasn't about love.


Don't die, Rex. Please don't die.


I don't want to say goodbye to MacKenzie.


I don't want to admit that she'll never turn up at my flat again, and surprise me endlessly with the thousand different shades of kindness and cruelty that she held within her. I don't want to forget the bitchiness, or the sweetness, or the amazing brightness in her eyes when she laughed. I don't want to let go of the woman who could make me scream, and find ways to hurt me that I didn't even think were possible. I don't want to let go of the woman who I felt safe with, late at night when the party was over.


I don't want to believe that I'll never see her, never touch her, never taste her again, and I don't care right now whether or not she won, whether she chose. I don't care and I just want her back here with me.


I don't want to say goodbye.


In this tiny circle of light it's possible to cry. I won't cry outside it. I won't make myself weak in a world that I hate. I won't snivel for attention, or demand sympathy from a supposed support group that stunts and mutilates its members rather than letting them grow. I'll let them hate me again.


What was it Rex called me?


'A cold blooded little cunt'


I think I like that.


My scalp stings, but my fist is full of feathers now. God, they smell awful when they burn, but the smoke flies up with a dozen different colours. Fly far and fly well my friends.


Fly high.


Fly free, my friends.


And I'll sit here by the fire and watch as all the rest turns to ashes.


Comments

[jholloway.livejournal.com]

"a cold-blooded little cunt," I believe.

I like it.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I edited as your original phrasing was better. And glad you like it. :)

[adze.livejournal.com]

Oddly, I think I preferred the original wording.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Yes, but it's not what Rex said, and I like to be accurate. :)

[suave-steve.livejournal.com]

A very apt summation, thanks.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

She still misses him, you know...

[suave-steve.livejournal.com]

I know :-)

[adze.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what to make of her burning something for Aidan. I didn't think she'd have even noticed his death, really.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Venice notices many things.

~nods sagely~

[kathminchin.livejournal.com]

oh my ...

ok I'm crying.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

In a good way?

[kathminchin.livejournal.com]

I miss Dey a lot. Nancy's cool; but it's not the same.

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

I miss Rosie too. I found some of the old Lost Spa stuff earlier tonight and felt really sad, watching Aria, and Dey and Rosie and Opal all having fun and not knowing what was going to happen to them.

[kathminchin.livejournal.com]

I think that the worst piece I re-read was the Valentine Ball last year. When Adrianne used Omen and found that Dey would see Aria within a year.

[elizathemekhet.livejournal.com]

That's a lovely piece for Venice. <3 for her