A Heart as Black as Ink
Ink began spilling over every tangible surface- dripping down the desk like the melting smile of lipstick, falling to the floor like rain droplets and splattering against the tiles like echoes of an empty love. I saw it, I saw it, yet I did nothing to stop it. I was a helpless sinner, watching Noah’s ark drift to safety as I was overtaken by the flood that beckoned his departure. Before these words had begun to drown me I remember thinking about how holy they used to seem. Allusions to childlike wonder amiss in their homelike tales of love and adventure. Now the only thing alluded to was my own departure. Deep, and dark, and ever forthcoming.
Even the shadows felt thick. I tried to hide from them, worried they might travel backwards through the air and tell him I was leaving. Tell him I was still breathing. Leaving my apartment- I wondered what could break the loose chains I could hear faintly clinking around my ankles, tangling like vines and slowly gaining control of my direction.
“Hello sweetheart,” I turned on the heel of the same step, shock infested emptiness breaking the stride I had built into maintaining. Because no matter how far I went, he found me. He always seemed to find me. And I always seemed to let him.
His fingers traced the familiar path they had grown accustomed to, small lines that spoke of ownership and emptiness- all without exposing a single breath. I had thought, for a simply foolish instant, that he would have stayed at the apartment, maybe to sweep up the broken glass of his own disasters, maybe to clean up my ink that he kept spilling- yet he returned; with angry fingertips and a cracking leash.
I watched him wearily, a cat watching a wolf with a sense of casual panic.
“D a r l i n g, there is ink everywhere- are you just going to let it sink into the walls?” I could taste the menace in his voice, as if his own insecurity was spilling- as if the ink would divulge the world of his secrets- of the blossoming ink stains on my arms and the broken bottles dancing through the air in our late night ‘talks’.
The strange thing about ownership is- it never seems to be what is deserved, only what is stolen. Something stripped from hands that will cherish and given to hands blanketed in bruises and slashed with poor intention. He only proved this, turning a vacant thought into a cell I was trapped within. And there was ink everywhere.
Returning home, I let my eyes dance over the darkened furniture, the ashen walls coated with a glimmering sheen and carpet stained with darkened memories; tainted and ashen against the soft plush. Exasperated, desperate. The familiar shock settled into a quiet hum, life on earth splashed with the discontentment of living. He lurked behind, furthering my fear of shadows close or far away.
My desk was shattered. Paper lay astray like stars tossed lazily across the sky, typewriter keys broken and scattered across the floor and pens thrown like arrows stuck into the walls and the ceiling and the papers and all of anything I had ever cared about thrown and disregarded and destroyed. I was vacant in my own home. I felt his hands dig into my ribcage like detrimentally sharp knives- slinking around me like a snake, fangs poised and ready. I bent over with trembling hands and an angry heart, beginning to clean the mess of myself he had made. He had made.
Clarity. A swiftness of self recognition. Heavy flick of a wrist and empty empathy. Excuses hung all over the walls like paintings of masculine drunken mood swings and hands that sink like a fist into clay. I picked up the pen. Heavy golden decor and a sharp twisted end. A sharp, twisted, end. I stood with power I had never been allowed to show. I looked at the shattered remains of my life around my feet like ashes of a fire, jerking my fist back, aiming straight through the heart and not hesitating, f a l l i n g, relief.
Ink began spilling over every tangible surface- blossoming through his shirt and down to the floor, echoing like an angry clatter of bottles, silent after a deep breath. I saw it and did nothing to stop it, yet this time I felt calm. He grabbed me for the last time and I pushed away the fingers that had every surface of my body scratched onto them. I waited for the emptiness to settle into the old building, gathering my papers and thoughts. It was fortunate a match was struck just close enough to spark against something. It was fortunate I escaped just in time. As I watched the flames lick and savor the old wood of my home, I was not mournful. I felt the fire catch within the home of my own body. I left with the embrace of a warrior, knowing I had fought this fire too long by feeding it the wood of my body instead of letting it burn out.
