write myself, save myself

this has been a rough few weeks, and it's looking like i've gotta try to write myself out of this hole. so here's a very short story i've been working on. i've been working on. (i decided to try to write some more fiction/creative nonfiction since that last story.) let's hope it helps improve my mood. :)

i hold him close to me. i like the feeling of his body hovering over my own, muscles hardened years ago veiled behind soft new cushions of flesh. i like the solid thick of him. his breath on my neck, warm and damp--i feel it, wait for it cradled between the brush of eyelashes on the little spot of skin behind my ears and the drift of his scent.

i close my eyes and try to concentrate. these days i can't seem to chase away the dread. it's like i'm just waiting for us to crack down the middle. to unravel, quietly, irreparably. to shatter. i just hope the shards form a lovely pattern when they tumble down.

i feel it most when we're alone at night. cloistered in my small room, he paces my cluttered floor, cursing the indignities of the hours before, wishing away the daylight lurking behind the dark. his face is knit with worry, and when he turns to me i see the clouds in his eyes. (i used to see stars.) please, i say, stop moving. come here. i soothe him, draw his head into my lap. nothing now but breathing and silence. i stroke his hair and try to tell him something true. but all i can manage are words i've heard somewhere else. so i say them--reheat lines i stole from other people's mouths and feed them to him, spoon full of sugar and something that looks like love.

maybe he will find out the truth. maybe he won't. maybe i'll lie so good that my words will turn into life, and everything will be pretty and simple like it used to be. maybe i'll just leave. all i know is that i would give anything--any goddamn thing--to feel something, anything, again.