Solitude.

I can’t ask him to stay.

No matter how much my heart aches to do so, my lips refuse to move and my body never shifts. What is right and what is wrong lose their meanings the further we spend time together, the longer I let myself contemplate between the two.

I can’t ask him to stay.

I watch silently as he lies beside me, eyes flickering beneath the dim light of the moon. The rays trickle in through the crack in the curtains, their luminosity almost sinful across such pallid flesh. He glows with it, simply sparkles with the way it accents every defining bone and curvature of his face, his neck, and those hands. The beginnings of bruises are forming, purplish and almost gold in the colour of the light. My fingers itch to reach forward and brush across the wounded skin, to press lightly against each mark and take delight in knowing, like a puzzle, they would fit; but I don’t. Instead, I take a sick pleasure in feeling my innocence slowly slip away, all hopes of reaching the pearly gates diminishing as I feel myself completely blanketed with warmth at the sight.

But I can’t ask him to stay.

As the night wears on, I grow tired; my body aches for relief, my eyes flutter with the heavy weight of slumber upon them. My mind fights to keep each train of thought from docking at the station, rushing onward across each track. I recall the actions of the evening, each recollection causing a part of me to tremble with that same sick delight. Wounds, much like the scar now integrated into my chest as long as a single nail could drag and the fresh bite mark in taut muscle, throbbing with prolonged heat and a dull pain where neck meets shoulder, cause part of me to stir that should be long left satiated. They’re not; I need more, I’ll always need more.

And yet, I can’t ask him to stay.

Dawn comes to a head, golden sunlight now pouring through the crevice between curtain and window. I’m nearly lost, every part of me weakened, eyes barely able to see through thin slits, but they do. Now he glows with a halo above raven locks, a glimmer to each strand visible even in the shadow. I let my face rest in the soft, musky scent of his hair, each breath causing a ripple. I smile as I watch him shift, sleep beginning to dissipate. He begins to wake now just as my eyes close, the heat of his body rising to a level that blankets me still. I hear noise in the distance, my name tumbling from soft lips I can still taste upon my own, can still feel across my skin.

I open my eyes to find an empty room, warmth now replaced with cold despite the sun that still looms overhead. It doesn’t reach me from where I lay, hidden in the shadows beneath the bed where I was meant to have stayed. The sound in the distance quickly becomes an echo of a memory, of a scream long since gone. I close my eyes again, fingers clutching, resting into a crease of carpet, much like a puzzle. My wrists ache with fresh bruises, my nails caked with blood from digging into the hardwood floor beneath the thin rug, from ripping through clothing and grasping at skin I didn’t wish to let go of. I sob quietly and bury my face into the disgusting navy, almost as dark as black, rug beneath.

I never have the chance to ask him to stay because he’s already gone.