"Goodbye Curly Head"

"Heart To Heart"

Waves of turmoil, rivers of misery and mountains of pain all cast aside in the face of a challenge waking anew. Slipping, agitated like a blind cat among pigeons, groping around in the dark in exchange for a few minutes of life spilled back into their hourglasses - futile attempts of the wicked.

What point was there in prolonging his stay? It felt like the only proper thing to do, throwing off the reins that bound him to any other sources of life giving essence, biting away any hands that tried to feed. Why?

He could not answer.

It warped into an obsession he couldn't quite grasp. The ill yearning for complete independence, for the ability to go anywhere at any time, to pride himself in being a man of his own.

But he was no man. Just a mere child, clinging onto memories and a mask that slipped ever so slightly with each passing day.

Despite all, he yearned. In the non corporeal playpen that was his mind at its most intimate, he found himself dousing the crimson corridors with the cleansing liquid that engulfed the one who brought the boy into this land and left him to rot. Staining the pictures, covering the bright souls living within with a hellfire yet to be lit, it was but a desperate attempt at showing control, gaining the lead over everything that laid under his reign.

With the flames raging behind, away went the times long lost, pushing him forward into the den of nightly intimacy and affection. He crossed the border, locking the rampant slaughter behind.

Waiting, nestled into the couch and its fuzzy cushions was a distorted image of someone he knew all his aimless life. Someone close. Someone who had his heart in a tight grasp.

She did not utter a word. Her smile was no more. In her eyes laid nothing but pure disappointment.

She did not protest as his blood covered hands slithered around her throat, locking like a serpent constrictor around its prey. Squeezing the air from her lungs, the life from her windpipe, pushing her down against the surface with the intent to break the chains that bound him.

Yet, she did not make a single sound. No gasping for air, no words of protest. Only the cold, piercing gaze of disappointment.

His hands were confident at first - the palms of a heartless killer. It was just another soul taken from someone he convinced himself to have hated. Taking just another life with no remorse, no guilt and no thought behind his empty eyes.

Then, the tremors set in. His grasp faltered, as her warm skin pulsated under his touch. The reality dawned on him whole, gutting his insides and spilling them all across the floor.

He couldn't. The restraints bit too deeply into his skin. Joined his muscles, became an integral part of the machine. Tearing the chains was a task far too great for the child hidden deep within. Not even the mask could help.

He was too weak. Too weak to leave the nest and let the winter breeze carry him wherever. Too broken to pick the pieces and put himself back into one. He wanted this to be his reality. He needed this.

And so, he found himself clinging onto the false memory once more, tears pouring from his eyes and disappearing into the folds of her warm, fuzzy sweater. With the soft wool tickling his face, he finally felt at home for once, in his inequitable existence of misery brought upon by no one but himself. As his arms held onto the girl he loved so inexplicably, his mind cleared, growing absolutely blank, letting go of any shame and fear, allowing more sobs and tears to pour from his face.