To the Hero with Rockets on His Feet

You don't say you want, only to take back the words later. You don't say you will, only to back out at the slightest hint of danger. You do not do any of these things, but you still do, you still did, because you're only human, are you not? Like a frightened animal, you bowed your once proud head and submissively retreated from the snarling creature who towered over you.

I know your story. You once loved that monster, though in your eyes it was never such. You saw it one day when life was at its liveliest, when things seem to be falling into place. You saw it, and hated it, very much like how you hated, at first sight, every one you meet. Because that's all you can do- hate first, love later.

But when you love, you fall endlessly, never mind the fact that anytime, you might hit rock bottom and barely survive. You fill the empty crystal glasses on your nightstand with tears without fail every night, before you let yourself fall into living oblivion. You were foolish, and brave, for daring to care for such a creature with the unfathomable eyes and leathery wings, but you were whole.

It seemed to me, that it was all that mattered. You were whole.

It didn't matter that you were ravaged, desecrated within an inch of your life for even stepping near the creature. It didn't matter that you returned with shreds of cloth barely hanging off your emaciated frame, with purplish bruises littering your alabaster skin. It didn't matter that there were dry tear tracks down your once-plump cheeks, didn't matter that your hair hung in greasy clumps around your tired face. It didn't matter that sorrow nearly killed you when the creature left.

You were whole. And it was all that mattered, because being whole allowed you to see yourself in the mirror and fool yourself into thinking that there are no cracks on the surface, that the mask of the joker remained as what it is- a visage with a painted-on smile.

I could only laugh at your demise. You were alive, yes, but barely. Seeing the creature in your memories and dreams could not sustain you for long, for you yearn to touch, to taste, to feel with your bare palms. Tangibility.

We do not know how much time had faded into waste. You went on hating, then loving, every person you meet down the path. We do not know how deep the lacerations had become, how large the gaping holes had grown, because you smothered them all with pretentious peace and silvery talc.

Until it returned. And the barriers you erected around yourself started to fall, one by one.

Until you were left as you were before the creature vanished.

Until you were nothing more than a bruised bag of bones.

Until nothing, save the creature, could liberate you from the prison you made for yourself.

Lies spewed from your mouth in endless streams. You no longer love the creature, you say?

I could do nothing but laugh. I laughed and watched your face crumple, watched as youth left your body through a rattling breath. I laughed and felt the disease consume her from the outside, eating away at her vitality, at her exuberance. I laughed at the absurdity of it all, that you loved and I hated, though we were trapped in the same shell.

See, we are one and the same. I always came first, so I hated. And you were a mere second, so you loved.

To the hero with rockets on his feet.

She never stopped, though you thought she did.

She never resented, though it appeared she did.

The only truth is that she loved.

She loves.