birds of a feather {talon}

[Arrows]

|| post 90th ||

t a l o n .

"you are weak
but not foolish
you have learned
how to die."

A soft squall shudders through the drawn blinds following a low breath from the ocean's breeze. From between the shifting slits, several shafts of moonlight slip across the shadowed living room. A hearth honed for a fire lies empty, a table meant for guests lies untouched, a room meant for life lies dormant, and in this assemblage of non-existence here I am. My toes are curled into talons against the edge of where the hardwood meets the grey rug beneath the coffee table. The rest of me is nothing more than a set of two small spheres peering out in a glowering gaze from beneath a brown blanket. Here, bundled on the floor by the couch's side, I am nothing but a child hiding from monsters in the dark beneath a sheet as a shield.

Hues of red ripple in swatches across the floor as something sears the sky outside. By the whistling cry that came before the crimson, I can figure it's another lone firework spurring across the stars. For a week now it's been this way, random streaks staining the mist muddled skies of the shoreline. Teenagers, careers, passing by on their bicycles still chanting my name like a label belonging to something other than a recovery addict pulled out of a smoldering pile of junk. When I manage to close my eyes for more than a couple of minutes I can still feel the paint knotted between the twisted tendrils of my dust baked hair. So I don't shut them. Instead, I listen to the sounds of my name trailing off their tongues until I'm back in silence.

Vibrations rattle the cushion behind my head and I all but leap out of my skin. The phone they gave me on the train burns as a single spotlight in the all but dark house, yet my eyes are glazed over. I can feel the metal around me whirring, vibrating, as the blue forcefield hisses with a deluge sparks. I can almost hear Parker's voice again as the machine devours her beneath the weight of my mech just before remembering that I need to breathe brings me gasping back to reality. Crumpling to my knees in a fit of coughing, my face buries itself into the cushion.

Jesse Brightwater.

The name on my phone fades into the matching shadows of the room. It's the first night I haven't been at his door by this time. Hell, it's the first time I've been inside this house that's supposedly mine now for more than five minutes. I haven't gone upstairs or used the kitchen. I don't even know if I have any groceries or even any fucking toilet paper in the bathrooms. For a week since getting off of that train I've still been hiding. I faced Jesse and then I stopped. I've been-

My eyes look to the blanket sprawled out across the floor as I bend over to pick it up.

I've been pulling a blanket over my head and trying to pretend like none of it happened. But why? Aren't I the better off for it? I'm not a lie to myself anymore, I'm clean, I'm rich beyond imagination, and yet I've fallen back into my old habits. I've been running and hiding- I can feel the tears starting to sting at the corners of my eyes now as my hands begin balling into shaking fists around the blanket- and running leads to lying to myself which leads to pills which leads to everything being-

I throw the blanket against the couch with a scream that echoes through the emptiness.

Everything can't be worthless. I won't let be.

Turning on the low chandelier lights, I walk over to the mirror shaped like the sun that hangs near the door. There are bags under my eyes, but it doesn't matter. That's not what they are going to talk about. That's not why I came here tonight instead of Jesse's. So I pull my hair up into a small messy bun and I touch up the amethyst paint on my nails. It even matches the gems on the studs in my ears. Once they've dried, I pull a black turtle neck onto my body, mainly because I think it's a cute contrast to my white skinny jeans, before stepping out into the night.

I don't know what I'm expecting, but it definetly isn't the sludge from my stomach being launched out onto the street once I reach the Town Square. Even seeing just the corner of it I feel immobilized. It's been over half a year and I can feel every second of it in the way my body is constricting itself. It's like every pill I took during that time is trickling back down my throat and every other kid I killed is choking me: five sets of hands and endless lies to paradise. I've always told myself I'm not strong enough for this and my body can remember it, but it remembers more too as it takes a step. It remembers that I didn't just fight for this exact moment, but I won for it.

The beach wood door creaks open with the same familiar irk that its always had just as the scent of surf wax washes over me. The work station lights are all that are on, but I can smell something else too: stew. My eyes are at the door that connects the shop front to the residence before her frame is even there. "Hi, Mom." A second figure appears. "Hey, Dad."

She's the first to move as less words and more sobs leave her lips. He follows, but silently and much more slowly. Within seconds I'm being tightly gripped in her arms as she continues to cry, but my gaze stays fixed on him and where he stops over by a work bench. "There-there wasn't a day we didn't watch."

One of my own hands almost soothingly rubs her back. There are words, so many words, but they all end rooted within my mouth. I can't do anything other than let her cry in my arms. I don't even know how long it lasts: 5-10 minutes of her just continually crying and there being nothing else other than silence.

When it does end though, she lets go and makes her way over to him still clearing tears from her eyes. I feel like I'm watching this all more as a spectator, not someone living through it. I feel so far away from my body, but at the same time so extremely present that I would notice even if a pin dropped. "We're proud of you, son."

His words change everything.

I'm not just back inside of my body, but I can feel every ounce of the way my stomach drops. I can sense every last nerve on my skin that runs colder than the ocean just outside the windows. I can hear every last drop of breath that leaves my lips on a silent sigh as my Mom's tears are still drying on my chest.

"Well, I'm disappointed in you." My words are hoarse, hollow, but they aren't weak. My eyes don't even drift away from theirs' like they used to. I don't even hesitate when that look of disbelief falls across my Mom's face. "You should understand that word from all the times you've used it to describe me."

This is what I fought for, huh?

No.

"If either of you went through what I have," There's no tears this time. Funny in a way, he got his wish didn't he? I'm not crying here. "You'd never settle for less than your worth ever again."

I didn't fight for them, I fought for me.

I turn and walk out letting the door shut with that same squealing irk behind me.

elegant