Can you?

Can you feel her heart beating, when you lower yourself to lie next to her. Where you lie, whether on grass, cool as the sky; or the floor of her living room where she lies in numb silence; or, in the half light, be it dusk or dawn, onto the white sheets that cover the too-small bed; to look sideways at her delicate profile, to feel the thrills in your stomach that you haven't felt for years and years, since Abigail Stevens cornered you in the schoolyard and you kissed her like she had never been kissed before, and though you were only children, you knew that it meant something more, so much more, but it would be years until either of you knew how to name it.

And does your skin burn where it touches hers. Do you know where she goes, in those moments of silence, where her skin becomes armour, a fortress to guard what you covet so dearly, her heart, her soul, her everything. Do you remember as clearly as she does, the first time she let you inside her home, the torn dress she was wearing, showing you glimpses of the back you had never seen before, and after you drank the too-sweet tea she made you, you never have told her that you drink yours black and unsweetened, and you held her hand, and she kissed your eyelid, your cheek, your ear. Do you remember hearing, amidst the thundering of your own heart, a timid invitation to come closer, not spoken with those reddened lips; reddened not by artificial means, for her lips would grow red when she was nervous, or passionate, or angry; but spoken silently, from heart to heart.

And did you feel it, waking up to the thin light that drapes lightly over the world at dawn, awaiting for the sun’s passionate fingers to rush forward and caress its coolness, until both absolve into each other becoming one and the same. On that winters morning, weeks, months, years after you had crept into herself, not caring to break down walls and fortresses, merely content to be close to her by any means: did you feel that wrenching honesty that, like the dawn and sunlight, you two had become one, your heartstrings were rendered within hers, and inseparable.

You remember it all, knowing that a part of her lives on in you, that as long as one or the other lives, you both shall continue to do so. You’ve seen it in her veins, blue pulsing lines drawn across her pale limbs, creating paths, highways, and secret roads which you so desperately desire to get lost amongst. Like a map of an unknown city, you pray to your deity: herself; that no path shall lead you to destruction, but regardless of the silence that whispers ‘take heed’, you do not relent. And you search for a way, search for the melodies in the reflections of light that shine in her hair, the rhythm of her step that falls into place with the beating of your heart. The swing and slide of her hips, her staccato laugh that reflects an awkward grace in her eyes, the movement of her hands, expressing her heart as she speaks.

Will you find her once more, fallen and lost, tangled in the bracken of her mind, the whispers of darkness entwined around her feet and hands, black against white, thorns pressing into the softest skin you will ever feel, drawing, extrapolating crimson tears in places where the pressure weighed too heavily on her soul. Will you see her as she really is, entrapped and without hope, or as you once saw her, when the suggestion of darkness seemed foreign and to think that once such as her could suffer, could feel so deeply was beyond your knowledge of such creatures as she.

Promise yourself to produce inadequate illusions, to shatter the glass cage of insensitivity that gives only glimmers of reality, to perceive, as her heart does, the pains and numbness that she strives so desperately to hide. And promise to never relent, though she may tear you limb from limb, she may brush against you with her invisible thorns, tearing at yourself and her. Though darkness may surround her, darkness in which no candle may penetrate, no flame tear asunder, promise you will be the stars, the moon, however dim, to remind her of the turning of the earth, and the encroaching renaissance. And promise to feel her heart beating, when you lower yourself next to her still form, entwining your fingers amongst hers, as a living reminder that your hearts may always be as such, and know that to feel her heart beating is to feel your own life, thriving and alive.