Embers || #FreeYourShorts LGBT+

Blazing Beneath My Skin

[ Dedicated to Ellie [ TahliePurvis ] for starting the amazing movement of #FreeYourBody because to love yourself and the body you live in is rather beautiful ]

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❝ The memory of you emerges from the night around me ❞

     On the night of your birthday, you light my insides on fire.

     You tighten your hold around my waist and kiss away all the distress from my being and abruptly, I'm in paradise.

     “I love you, I love you, I love you,” you say, your voice just a whisper of love and an ocean of vulnerability and I feel the ocean drip down from your eyes on my face as I encircle your waist and bewed us together.

     Our kisses were no more hesitant and I wanted to cry because you were so overwhelming and draining and beautiful and I wanted to kiss away the small crack of fear in your façade.

     Your fear; maybe it's because of the screams of your mother lingering in the room or maybe it's the red handprint blotching my cheek and it's all very obscene, we don't care as another of our kiss burns away the screams of disgust coming from your mother's heavenly mouth.

     “Are we going to regret this?” you abruptly ask, a shiver kissing my spine at the mere thought of you not wanting me anymore and my skies are painted the colour of smoke at that thought and I kiss you again, the kiss is short but the feeling is lingering, an echo bouncing back and spreading so that I feel your affection in every part of my body.

     “All I'm going to regret is not loving you before,” I whisper into the void. A smile from you fractures our melancholic existence and I'm brought back to the day when you first smiled at me at the school gates and my whole world went spiralling around me.

     “I won't regret anything with you, ever,” you say, your eyes holding a promise and I'm soaring through the skies. I remember the day you slapped me for kissing you because you “weren't into girls” before grabbing my face and kissing me again. I remember the rage your touch held, igniting me and the way you held my face so harsh that you painted it blue and red.

     I remember the day you asked me to be your girlfriend and the way pink dusted your cheeks. I agreed and we were happy; happiest we'd been in a while.

     “Can we make out hookups more, um, official?”

     “I don't understand whatever you're trying to say.”

     “Be my girlfriend?”

     “Nice joke.”

     “…”

     “Oh shit. You're not joking.”

     “…”

     “I mean, of course. Are we girlfriends now?”

     “No, we're in like.”

     “Oh my God.”

     I remember your mother finding out about us and her screams still linger in the room we now drown ourselves in love till there's nothing but us left. Her claims of giving birth to an abomination long forgotten as we shut our eyes, painting our vision black.

     “What is this?”

     “Mum, I can explain!”

     “How are you going to explain this — this ungodly thing! You both are girls, for God's sake!”

     “But mum, I love her!”

     “It's just devil's way of making you turn away from God. She — She's the devil! Satan!”

     “Ma'am, just because I'm not saying anything doesn't mean that you can address me as Satan or yell at my girlf—”

     “Mum! Get away from her! Stop hitting her!”

     “Abomination!”

     I'm suddenly faced with the mental juxtaposition of your smile and tears and I frown, knowing the reason of your tears is wrapped to you and is going through futile attempts of changing reality.

     Sensing my discomfort, you hold me tighter. “It's okay.” Your voice is a trace of hesitance and I'm brought back into reality — the reality where we are iniquitous and our existence is hell-ish and I fall off the cliff once again.

     I fall because of my affinity for the way you love me. I fall because of the way you stand by me despite of us being wrong to everyone. I fall because of your decision to withdraw yourself from everyone you love to have me. I fall because of the way you hold my combustible frame with your fiery hands. I fall for you because of the way you make me want to dive headfirst into the ocean and scream the confessions of my love for you into the void.

     I then realise how I don't care about anyone accepting me until I have you – here, in my arms, combusting my being to ashes of love and despair.

     On the night of your birthday, you light my insides on fire, pouring petrol in my mouth and watch me burn for a little longer, but whispering the words we never dare to say in the sober daylight.

     I love you, I love you, I love you.

Copyright © 2016, Adrianna James.

[ NOTE : I've been rather uninspired recently and this was the only thing I could write without spiralling down into the abyss of the dreaded “writer's block.” ]