A curious mind cuts the tape on a dust covered box
Hands grasping at memories, that which was lost to the tale of time
Fate plucks something out of the box,
A cassette tape.
He listens to the naive voice of his younger self
He smiles, a fragile, nostalgic thing
And then he hears them,
The shadows that used to haunt the corners of his vision
The monsters that used to lay under his bed and outside of his locked door
His hands grasp for something from now, a piece of the new reality he's created
But all he can feel is dust.
He is not who is used to be
He is no longer scared
He is strong and smiles wide and easily
His voice is steady now and never breaks
His hands don't shake,
His scars are healed
He is different.
But deep in the back of his mind he knows that he is not all that different,
He still locks his doors at night
And flinches at loud noises.
Boxes are sealed shut, and shoved in the back of closets for a reason.
They are filled with little but skeletons and dust.
Open at your own risk.

Stick my veins with pins and needles
Fill my blood with poison
They'll pretend not to notice the ever growing circles under my eyes
Or how my skin get paler with each passing day
Let them pretend
Let them whisper their concerns behind closed doors
Open me wide and fill me with malady
Take up your knife with a close precision
And cut me out of my body
Let my spirit rest in the stars
Take away my earthly pains
With your head held high
And the bittersweet taste of indifference on your lips
(Bitter for me, sweet for you.)
Pour death into my bones,
Don't cease or falter when my eyes flutter shut and my lungs seize up
Let my heart beat slow and my mind go numb.

Through no fault of hers,
Her hands were fire
And her gaze was ice
Through no bad intentions
She watched me crumble under her fingers
Her soft hands scorched my skin
Through no rhyme or reason
Her smile was twisted
And her hand on my shoulder
Was enough to crush me

She stands alone.
She feels her universe fall apart at her feet, her second chance destroyed
The cracks in the floor taunt her, expanding and giving way to the stars.
She is falling apart, cracking and shattering under the pressure of space.
She misses him, misses the way he smiled easily and never failed to make her laugh
Without him everything feels hollow and empty,
Some days she can barely remind herself why she ever even tried
But then she remembers his warm eyes
He was beautiful, starry eyed and full of hope in the face of death
Maybe it was good he was gone, she would never have to see him break.
She would never have to see him shatter under the cold fingertips of the universe.
But in all truth perhaps the only reason he didn't crack when she did
Was that he was already in pieces.
Maybe they hung on for each other
Maybe they can let go now.
She looks at the world around her
She sees, for the first time the beauty he saw in everything
She smiles, bittersweet and tragic
She will die here,
He will die somewhere else.
Fine.

in the cool of the evening, He told her,
"there's an art to being still."
(she and the ribcage man choke on apple seeds and venom)

she guesses she didn't learn it soon enough.

"don't ever leave me."
she is small
and new
and can feel the sun on both sides when He smiles and traces constellations on her palm
and the wish is not selfish

not yet.