“It’s that bad love that we think we need to be free,” she speaks without me even answering her previous statement.
“It’s who we allow to orbit inside us that causes these strange feelings and for some when you haven’t had a real love, you will seek out the fake to take the hurt out of the not knowing how else to manage. It’s like when you have bloodshot eyes from drugs, or when you’re alone crying after getting hit or abused from a devil dressed in lovers clothing. Promising you stability, when all they have is a good time for a short time in mind. You know when you take a shot and it warms you for a moment and you chase it for the rest of the night? The same way drugs give you that reckless warm sensation, wrapping you in something that come morning light, it is just as dark as a lover’s fist on your skin or his bitter sharp tongue inside your mind. Its heartache dressed up as love, but really it’s the devil.”
I can't handle the truth inside her words. I have to break the stare. Her hands find my face pulling me back to her. “Don’t run from me. Stay. You asked me to not run from you, so I am now asking you to not run from me, to stay. This road is dark. We both have a past we have to share if it’s a future you want with me.”
“I don’t want to lose you and be alone again… but I’m unsure I can live with the both of you inside my head, little bird.”
The truth in my words hurt her. I see it in her eyes,
“No one but her knows the rhythm of my heart,” I say inside the small space between us.
“You don’t know how I lay there in the dark, 81, and memorize the beats of your shattered heart. Memorize still moments in between nightmares that plague you while you sleep. So yes, I know the rhythm of your heart better than she ever could, because unlike her, I will stay when the road gets rough. I will breathe out and walk with your demons while holding your hand.”
“I’ve been so afraid of changing this way that I live because I’ve built my life around her. But then, little bird, you came along and like hands in wet cement you touched me and it was permanent. I don’t know what to do.”
She watches me for the longest time her eyes looking past my empty stare, deep down into the part of my soul where feelings live.
“I won’t play pretend with you, 81. I need you to not hide from me because I will give it all up to have you. I won’t hide how I feel about you inside, so I will need you to let her go and take me instead.”
“I can’t seem to get her out of my head.”
“I’m not asking you to, I’m asking you to make a room for her to sit in there and allow me to run with you inside the walls.”
“I miss her.”
“You miss the crazy that she brought. The pain. The way you could feel without feeling at all.”
“I just need you to hold on, little bird. I’m a little unsteady.”
I watch her as she shuffles closer, her touch calms the chaos swirling inside me. It quiets the demon begging for death and the taste of blood.
“Fuck, aren’t we all?” She laughs, her lips so close to mine. My body humming with the desire to taste her. Kiss her taste, her fucking soul and never let go.
“I’m a beast, baby, and you’re too fucking beautiful for this world, yet I’m begging you to stay. My life, it fucking kills,” I whisper closing my eyes. I want nothing more than to allow my body the experience of kissing her, but I haven’t kissed another since Hannah. I don’t do kissing. It’s too intimate to just do with a club whore. It’s an intense act where you can feel the others soul… where you can feel alive. “Open your eyes, 81,” she speaks softly, the pad of her thumb running over my cheek bone.
She draws me in with her look as I open my eyes, pulling me toward her as her face inclines towards mine. I have to take a deep breath in and swallow it down. Shaking, I'm fucking shaking.
The rims of her eyes are inflamed with a desire that I haven't felt in my body for what feels like an eternity. Breathing deeply, she rules me, put me off, and lures me back into her. Each new emotion different and our lips have not even touched yet. She's so close. I can feel the tremor of my bottom lip as I watch her take in a deep breath. Her dark lashes flutter over her cheeks slightly as she closes her eyes only to open them with a newfound fire.
Unexpectedly, my body begins to move without warning from my brain. I drift my hand to her hip. I pull her closer. She inhales sharply. I pull her tight into my chest looking deep into her eyes that are burning with questions and desire. She wants to be loved, touched, and explored but she's scared. I can feel it in her, see it inside her eyes. But this little bird, this lady, Jade, she's perfect. Perfect for him. Why must she be so perfect? My breathing quickens as did hers.
I begin nuzzling her neck with delicate kisses. So faint, they are whispers of a broken love song on her skin. I can feel her battling with herself to push away but her body wins over her mind and she stays; she allows me to sing a sad love song into her skin with just my lips. She urges herself to push away but can’t. Her body begins to tremble uncontrollably. I angle my head slightly to the side as my lips come closer and closer to hers. Her lips part allowing me to move in closer. Our breaths mingle. Her heart flutters inside her chest. I can feel it against mine as I lean over her more, wrapping one hand around her back as I lower her body back into the grass. My body presses into hers holding myself slightly off her with the forearm of my free arm.
At first, it is a delicate butterfly of a kiss.
Then it moves to open mouths and tongues touching, the deep warmth like a fire on a snowy night encasing around us. As our bodies fight for more, our brains scream that this will end in heartache and pain, but the way we react to each other, the way the kiss tastes like the best coke I have ever snorted, she's my new drug and I'm fast falling into full blown addiction. Her body moves. Her hips press up to meet mine as she moans into my mouth causing fire to dance behind my closed eyes. Needing to watch her unravel inside a kiss, I open my eyes and see that she's watching me. Wanderlust dances inside her eyes, stained with tears. A lone tear rolls unexpectedly from my eye and down my cheekto meet hers rolling down her own. It hurt to see that so much pain could live inside eyes that scream with a lust so strong that it burns to just look at it.
I pull back. “Why the tears, little bird?” I question her as her fingers leave my body to swat the tears away from her creamy skin.
“Did you know thatlove heals our brains? It develops in the prefrontal cortex and enables us to make wise choices, without such we are like permanent partial-drunks thinking ourselves fully sober.” My eyes widen at her comment. That’s definitely not what I was expecting but I have come to realize that Jade isn’t like all the other chicks out there. She’s unique, she’s wonderous and she has a brilliant but abstract mind that I have found feeds a new thirst inside me for more. To know more about what is around us, in us. Watching the world through her eyes is undoubtedly a fucking insanely beautiful experience.
I smile down into her eyes as she looks up at me under wet lashes. “I hate everything that is this world and yet here I am in arms that could destroy me.”
The truth in her words hit hard. I know she has ghosts, but I didn’t expect them to haunt so deep.
“I won’t hurt you, little bird. Not intentionally, that’s for sure,” I say knowing that hurt and destruction is all I am capable of.
“Hurt me? Maybe not, but destroy me. Yes.”
