Cold (Viewfinder song ficlet)
“I’m sorry,” his whisper fell, literally, onto deaf ears.
Looking back at me I see
That I never really got it right
And did it matter to the stone whether there was a man before him or not, paying tribute to the skeleton beneath it? Not to the stone, perhaps, but to the man that knelt, it mattered. To the skeleton beneath...even to the skeleton it mattered. Somehow, it did.
“I’m so sorry.”
I never stopped to think of you
Was that all he could say? For having wasted what little time they had had together? For running and chasing, chasing and running endlessly and never once looking back at what he left behind? Never once considering his objectives?
He was supposed to have seen through that, he was supposed to be have understood. He used to pride himself for them, for his intuition. So why not? Why didn’t or hadn’t he? He had thrown accusations and received some in return, spiteful bitter words. True, the neither he nor other had been the most innocent individuals, but in retrospect, he saw his guilt, and saw that it outdid the other’s by far.
I'm always wrapped up in
Things I cannot win
Risky business he dealt with. Always there, on the scene, and did he ever once really, that is really, succeed? For all his aspirations and dreams and goals and bitter fighting...where had all that landed him? Nowhere. That word, nowhere, acidic it tasted, unspoken at the tip of his tongue.
You are the antidote that gets me by
In that darkness they lived, he had been that single soul who recognized him. In that pitch black life, groping in the tenebrous cave, his hands could reach out and touch him, feel him, smell him, taste him, and know that he was there without seeing him. And for a split second, he could open his eyes, he could, in that instant, clear away the unseen cataract and poison.
Something strong
Like a drug that gets me high
Now, it felt like living in terminal withdrawal. Here, kneeling, on one knee. Life had become dull and cold, like the damp grass soaking into his knee. Every breath felt forced. Every contraction of his heart felt like an imitation of those rapid palpitations he used to feel. Sweat mixing with sweat, slick and sticky skin upon skin. Soft lips upon hard ones, hard ones upon soft. Push and pull, pull and push. Shove, rip, tear. Forgetting which body they were in, his or the other’s. Hands grabbing, groping, feeling for the sake of feeling and nothing else. Fingertips touched, fingers wound together, ecstasy as if suspended in some chemical emulsion.
What I really meant to say
What was never said... clawed at him from inside out, and he could feel his insides being hollowed out every time he dreamt. Every time he lay his head down on the cold surface of his pillow and let his eyelids cover his instrument of vision, another pair of dream eyes surfaced and he wished he could say it. To that dreamlike figure. But in his dreams, he had no mouth.
Is I'm sorry for the way I am
But apologies never quite cut it when the timing was wrong, now did they? They hung in the air and vanished like smoke then sank back into the soil. Ashes. Once the heart stop beating, every function stopped. He no longer tasted nor felt nor heard nor saw nor smelt.
I never meant to be so cold to you
Why did they dance around each other like that? Fear gripped them and neither knew it. He never knew that it sat there upon his shoulders, like tape across a captive’s mouth, like cuffs around wrists. Like rope around ankles. It made it afraid to open the flood gates inside him, knowing that if he opened it, the weight would crash his self-imposed dam. He had become so accustomed to that weight, but he didn’t realize it was there until it grew ever heavier after the man’s death.
And I'm sorry about all the lies
The false words from back then still lingered in the caverns of his mouth, like dry aspirin pills stuck between his teeth, under his tongue and at the roof of his mouth. He laughed softly at the utter stupidity. God, how blind had he been? That was it, he was denial at its very best.
Maybe in a different light
You could see me stand on my own again
They were prowling in circles on that stage, saturated in artificial spotlights. The audience had dropped below, the stage itself dropped below. And now that the gravestone stood, cold and indifferent and black, finally the stoplights dropped below along with the roof. He dropped below, leaving the other, not quite standing, on firm, damp ground, kneeling on one knee.
Cause now i can see
You were the antidote that got me by
Something strong like a drug that got me high
I never meant to be so cold
Too late. Too late to beg for forgiveness. Too late to forgive. Give and take did not exist.
I never really wanted you to see
The screwed up side of me that I keep
His innocence was crushed. The flicker of light was never there to begin with, or was it? Feign ignorance. Turn a blind eye. Stop your ears and you will never, never ever know. And he had preferred it then. To never know.
Locked inside of me so deep
It always seems to get to me
If he could pretend that it was never there, then he had thought, maybe, just maybe, it would never reach him, it would never touch him. How so completely wrong he had been. He was like a soldier fighting with unfelt wounds, the way adrenaline makes you forget that there is a spear or a bullet or an arrow lodged in you. The way a naïve child believes itself hidden by shielding his eyes. Futile and useless, but of course, he never knew.
I never really wanted you to go
So many things you should have known
I guess for me there’s just no hope
I never meant to be so cold
No hope.