Ruby

Ruby

It's nighttime. It's dark. And I'm alone. And I'm rotting from the inside out like I always am. It hurts. Not me. The people. The masses. It hurts. Them. They hurt.

And I'd like to live a virtuous life, I think. But the truth is I'm honestly too wrapped up in sin.

It's nighttime. It's dark. The moonlight glints on the water, low and dull and slimy. I can see it from my arching, clawing window. Not that I care. I'm too far gone to care.

I hate the river and everything it's come to represent.

Death is really the only way out of this bullshit is what I'm trying to say. We hate ... we do absolutely hate those who didn't take up La Causa and that includes us but the promise of a better world is just as out of reach as the promise of justice is.

He comes to me when it's late at night, one night. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Angelic. Enticing. Entrancing. My knees are weak. And I know I'm a disappointment to him. But I want to know him. I reach out to touch (to taste) but I'm stopped by ... by something clutching at me with waves of smoke. Just a few millimeters away from falling out the windows into the depths of his arms.

Milimeters. I think about him sometimes when my mind lets me. Dear God he's beautiful. Pitch-black (raven-black) wings darker than the sky around him, feathery. If he but touched my hair I could perhaps learn not to sin. If he kissed me roughly, desperately, I would melt into the ground in the best possible way. Emerging from the shadows of the cave of ignorance and ego, into the light and freedom of equality. Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me, part of me thinks of saying. But I can't or maybe I don't.

The words I love you don't mean I want to touch you. The words I love you mean I want to die for you.

I want to die for your cause. I want to die for your well-being. If my death is what it would take for you to get the respect you deserve then I forfeit this life. And I want to die for someone's cause. For his cause. I want to burn all his demons, crush all his enemies. I want to help him emerge victorious. But I also don't want to. I'm a cog in a machine and I'm too young to fulfill my place on it, young enough to have some rebel left in me. But that will change if time finds me alive in two years' time.

I want to die for you, I want to die for you, I want to die for you. And I don't want to die for him, but part of me does. And if he wanted me to touch him I would, I hope.

I'm dreaming. I'm standing in front of a boy that shimmers like moonlight. Magical. Not pretty how a painting is pretty but pretty how a blizzard is pretty. Powerful. Potentially devastating. But a part of nature in all it's glory. A force of nature. Necessary. To be respected, feared, and admired all the same. His hair shimmers like dusk. My knees are weak. I cut open my palm with a small dagger. The blood is beautiful, burning, red. So red. I bring my hand to his cheek, caressing, leaving trails of red as I make my way to his lips. I hover over his pink lips gently, not touching, waiting for him to move.

He's buzzing with electricity and moonlight and hope and brightness. Need. Dear God, he's everything that belongs in the world. My knees are weak, weak, weak. His whole being is overwhelming. Hope and anger. Hurt and desperation. Love and confidence. He's the Katniss to my Peeta and he knows it.

He holds my hand in his, and presses my bloody palm to his lips. I smile, my eyes lighting up. He presses hard, longing kisses into my palm and it hurts and I love how it hurts. Suddenly heavy, invisible arms try to pull me back but he keeps me there, the light from his eyes banishing my demons. He looks ... he looks imploring as he asks me to ... to stay. I do.

His lips, his chin, his cheeks, the tip of his nose. All smeared a wild, wild crimson. He shoots me a playful, almost childish look. I shoot one back. He takes hold of the back of my hand again, moving it down his face and licking my fingers with an exaggerated, unapologetic expression. I laugh. Quietly. We honestly can't be found out.

Like ... I mean we can ... but not by ... not by anyone society would take seriously. So if like a little girl walked in on whatever this is we'd be fine.

His spit and my blood intermingle on his face as he pushes his tongue through my fingers. Smiling, I press one on my fingers into his mouth. He looks delightfully surprised, and sucks softly as I press my still-bleeding wound onto his chin, his cheeks. He leans into it, and my hand throbs with pain. I press two other fingers into his mouth. He pulls a fourth one in. Blood has started to run down even his neck now. We stay like this for a while, my fingers dancing in and out of his mouth, like threads being woven by his own slender fingers. my blood dripping all over him.

The lock to my door starts turning. We gasp as he opens his mouth and I yank my hand away, behind my back. Whoever is behind that door is not a little girl.

"The world pulls, you pull back harder." He whispers, barely whispers, and I have to strain to hear. And I think of all the people that are unheard in this world. This is who the song is about. And I remember. But my hand is still bleeding. I hope it never stops. I kiss it, tasting his sweet, bitter saliva. And I drift off to sleep.

I awaken with a large, gaping, scabbed-over cut on my hand. And I cry tears of joy.

Mountains and mines and factories and plantations and houses still exist. But butterfly wings also exist. Firework people also exist. And obviously something deeper, more all-encompassing, fairer, more equal, more motherly, exists. It exists beneath the surface, aching to be let out. Rich people have their own God. Revolutionaries have a different God.

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