Where the Flow Stops
The worst of it all was I remember hearing my brother scream at the end, though I know he shouldn't have been able to. I think it was more awful when I realized that the first moment when he had been hurt wasn't of him actually dying. I felt guilty for abandoning him and somehow the memory of that intermingled with my final moment in the kitchen, at the window, where it all burned into my mind.
It ingrained itself there so intently that it always seemed to mix in with his final screams where I my voice wouldn't come out. It still made my stomach clench. Now, after all that... That terror-filled night in my childhood... I would be waking up to the new woman who had filled my skin years later.
I would stare at her in the mirror every other morning or so... Well, when it was available. The locations always changed with a new style of mirror every time, yet she always stared back at me with those eternal green and hazel eyes. Was anyone even there at all? Was I here?
I could stare at each finely manicured nail, view her long slender legs, and stare at her facial features after each shower and somewhat envy the woman she pronounced herself as before we would walk out the room. I could feel her pride bolster in her seductive yet moderate style of dress.
Being suggestive didn't take much effort but being tasteful took class. She learned how to do this and she did it well. The women we saw always helped lead our direction. All of this really was for our survival through our lonely road and I would only watch from within that empty cabin in the back of our memory.
I liked to consider myself different from her. I want to say we aren't the same person but we share this body. The only difference is she only comes around when the hunger rises. When I'm afraid, she returns only to comfort me with food. I watch her weaves her trap around the men we entice, pulling them closer to fulfill us.
It's nice how sometimes I can close my eyes while she performs our dirtiest work. I stopped remembering their faces when the I noticed the thin black shroud appear around my eyes. It felt like I was watching an old movie and for some parts of our time, I can believe we aren't the same. I can wish that I wasn't her if I close my eyes a little longer.
I like to remember myself as the small child who struggled to push out tiny breathes between frantic, gurgled, cries when the stranger with black wispy hair and haunting brown - almost black - eyes yanked me out from under the kitchen table. I remember his eyes begging for me to look into mine as he leaned down and-!
"Ah!" My scream startled me awake as I tried to surge up only to find myself stuck.
"Oh..." I let out an uneasy breath, "Just..." More memories. I blinked, opening my eyes as I stared up at the complete black and reached a hand up from my chest to peel back the Earth above me. I crawled up, my hands clutching the tree roots as I unearthed myself from my desperate hole. This was where Justin dumped me? 'Fair enough,' I had thought. I could have burned up into a crisp in the morning daylight so at least he spared me that.
A hoarse laughter escaped my throat. I couldn't blame him, was I all I could think as I crawled from my shallow 'grave' - as I liked to call it - into the early night.
The night earlier than this, we had spun around each other all evening, kissing and teasing one another with soft and cajoling words. I know Justin had told me he was paranoid that I might be the monster in his mind but I didn't mind it. He could believe whatever he wanted.
I know that we were both lonely and the desperate kisses that we pushed onto each other only showed how we longed for repair but there was no where to begin. Justin's schizophrenia hadn't deterred me at first either and he didn't seem to mind how I wasn't human. Our ailments never had really been a large discussion between the two of us but at least he was practical with attempting to bury me.
He could have chose to not believe me. For all he knew, I could have died after he buried me but then I remember his light-hearted joke. He had made that joke right before the slumber took me under. 'I guess I have to find some way to savor my un-dead Queen.'
I was foolish for putting my faith into him and trusting that he didn't kill me right then and there for what I am.
I chided myself, remembering that I would have to stop clinging to the crazy ones. The abused minds and broken souls did, however, strongly resonate with me but it was an unhealthy relationship to develop. I had to at least be honest with myself about that but in a sense... Not much sense could be made of it. Until you considered my lack of control over her.
One might even guess, with refreshed indignation, that the past always has a way of twisting the future into predictability after living as long as I have. The history might be what might clear up some of my terrible behavior but I wasn't any good for him - or any other for that matter - and he wasn't any better for me.
I'm not particularly inclined to believe that this is always the truth but what with all that I have seen, sometimes I can't help but submit to the notion that this is all that I have. This is as I have seen my life - though from a less rational perspective - amount to. Although, it forgot the largest and worst part of it that even lead on this way in the first place. It reminded me that I also don't have to kill
But... I... I have this way where I start to confuse prey from an intelligent being. It's hard to remember when the fear takes them and they seem more like some dumb, scared animal and the hunger somewhat blurs the lines. I become unsure or at least forgetful of the differencd between people and just another meal. I always forget their humanity but I like to think the mad-man of my childhood did too.
I think I know this is why I love the broken ones so much. They never seem to remember what it's like to be afraid and I can push back the hunger a little more and be actually intimate. Then again, I also sometimes wonder if it's my nature to become unnaturally apathetic to their weak constitutions, which is what makes me seem like the dark demon at the bottom of a whiskey bottle at 2:00am in a bar out in the middle of nowhere. I think that's when I started to act out or maybe that's when I started to blossom into the poisonous midnight flower everyone wanted to pick.