He told me that I am more than my body.
That I am more than my faked smile, my flashy quirk.
More than the personality that just isn't right.
He said that I do not have to be perfect to be loved.
And that I should not have to be.
People ought to love me for my 'success'.
The way I make people want to do more, to surpass their limits.
How I gift them the opportunity to get more confidence.
Yet, it is a heavy thought, to think...
To think I have to convince people with my persona,
To think I will never be quite satisfied,
To think I will always see with my eyes.
It weighs me down without end.
Envy
They walk or talk, and heads turn.
Fondness, adoration, aftection, love
They are wooed by their appearance.
their personalities , their eyes, their smiles.
Anger
Beautiful is what they are.
They do what they need to and in the end they are adored.
...
I put the work in
I fake my pride, my confidence, i disguise my cries into screams so people wont see me as weak.
And yet, they stand above me, with perfect hair, eyes and smiles.
Helplessness.
But can I hate them? No
Because the issue is me.
It is me who wasn't born like them.
I was born to never be enough.
And anger flares high and wraps its arms around me,
holding me tight with no escape, no flight.
This is what I despise about him,
Because I may not hate him, but he makes me hate myself.
Deku
...
But he doesn't see me with my eyes, he doesn't see me as the arrogant, rude, and selfish human that others seem to see me as.
Kirishima
I wanted him to stay. Forever. With me.
...
But even just wanting that is so fucking selfish.
I needed to become someone better, someone he deserves...but
There was no way out.
No way up.
...
Maybe a way through... but he had no idea what to.
Could he really be anyone else, anyone different than who he was?
Who even was he?
Gifted but not supported.
Feeling like he has something to prove.
That's all he wants, someone to believe in him and because he thinks no one actually does, he believes in himself...so he's not down.
,, What are you thinking about kiddo?"
,, Nothing...just...there are some things to that i need to understand."
,, Feelings are hard to understand aren't they."
,, mmmhm. "
,,Don't really know what to say here... but i think i have a little tip."
,, well?"
,, If you really like this boy, wait for the right moment...wait for the time you'll be all good and then think seriously about what do you want to happen to what you're feeling...He seems like he cares a lot about you...take care of him"
,, 'take care of him' ?...Like you did with dad?"
________
Dad stood at the kitchen counter with the phone in his hands,his legs ice, his chests ice.
Mom described the view, the height, the trees below. I was playing with my new ball. It rolled into the room. I ran in, laughing, making little explosions, banging up against dad's legs and he couldn't hear Mom.
,, Shit , Katsuki, stop it!" he said. He looked down at me ,, Just stop!" and his voice was ice.
I started to cry.
And mom was crying too.
,, Please Mitsuki" Dad said. He had to sit down. ,, I don't know what to do "... ,, Please"
,, ... I can't move Masaru. I can't breathe. Everything breaks."
Mom's breathing got ragged.
,, Mitsuki,please,please!"
'please' Dad thought then, 'please don't leave me.'. 'Please don't leave me and don't scare me by not being here and please be the way you were when I met you, before you became a mother and every day began to terrify you.'
And in that moment he wished hard to go back to the time before. To the time they weren't parents and Mom wasn't broken.
To the time before me.
The nightmares never stop, the guilt never ends...
________
Mom opens her mouth. Closes it.
She says:
"When you were born, Katsuki, I thought I would die. I mean, I knew I was going to; we all do. I mean. I know I did."
She blinks at me, slowly, like she's in slow motion.
"I mean," she says,"when you were born, I held you and thought, I might die of love. I understood, then. What it all means, you know? I thought, I would throw myself in front of a truck for you. I would not hesitate. I knew this, .01 seconds into holding you."You were tiny, Katsuki . You were so fragile. I held you and sang a song to you, and you slept in my arms and I was hit by this thunder feeling, like I was swimming inside a storm, you know?
...
,,You came out and they nearly dropped you," says Mom from the other part of the room. The one at the window, Mom's palms on the glass.
I lift my eyes, look at her while she stares at the moon.
,, No they didn't, Mom"
,, i was so scared. You could have died."
,, But they didn't. I'm alive. I'm here."
,, Your body was so tiny, Katsuki. You were so small and slippery, and there was so much blood—"
I can hear her rising panic, then the wind catches it. Mom's voice turns into a fading whistle and calms down.
...
...What did I sing to you? ...i forgot.
"I remember thinking: I'm going to make you so happy.
"I thought: You're going to make me so happy.
"I thought: I'll breathe for you, Kat, beat for you, walk and work
and live for you."
Mom is a shiver in the air. Mom is see-through. Mom's voice is
a hum.
" i am so sorry I neglected you for so long, sweetheart. I am
so sorry I didn't stay. I wish I could explain it- if there was a
way--but maybe there isn't a way or a why. If I could, I'd show
you, I wish-
Mom leans forward. She picks up my hand, her hand/my
hand; we are figments, fragments.
Mom is a measurement of love.
"Don't come find me," she says suddenly. "Please, Katsuki?"
She says, "Promise? You don't need to. I'm right here."
And I feel a thump in my chest. Like someone has dropped
a rock onto my ribs and it's a wonder my bones don't crack.
I can feel the stone settling,
round rock into riverbed.
I am the riverbed.
We are the rock.
Mom
Mom?
" Yes?" says the rock, says the riverbed, says my fleshbone,
says my mother .
Tell me a story?
"I can do that."
...I lie in the dark, and listen.
The first time she saw a city.Rise and glint of buildings upon buildings. Sound, steel, and sinew, walking for hours.
The first time she saw an ocean. Tumble, breath. Rise, fall.
Blue to always.
"Katsuki , it was beautiful. It was like waking up."
The first time she saw the sun rise over the ocean.
The first wave she caught.
Electric, electric, electric.
The first time she was dumped off the wave.
The first salt-in-mouth-kiss of a wave.
The first time she saw Dad. She split him open and laid him
out.
The first time she heard Dad laugh.
The first time she kissed him. It was honey and sunlight.
The first time they made love, her skin zinging.
The first time she flew a kite.
The first time she ran on sand. The first time she ate a nectarine.
The first time, the first time-
the first time she saw me.
The first time she kissed the top of my head.
The first time I fell asleep in her arms.
The first time I walked towards her. Arms stretched out.
The first time I said her name.
The first time she said mine.
"Katsuki ."
Laughter, toddle feet, sand and sun through leaves.
"Katsuki ."
Ice cream on chins, rainbow lorikeets.
"I love you," says Mom.
She's faint now. She's talked for hours. She's laid my stonework down. It's hard to see her; she's fading out.
"Katsuki", she says.
"I love you."
....
Fading and fading but never coming back.
What did I do? What didn't i do?
I didn't speak the way I was supposed to - bright and confident into the future where i was more agreeable, blinder, legs, arms, eyes, ears ready to face scars.
And the thoughts come sauntering, like they've been waiting in the winds all this time:
'You know Katsuki, you can't just like that boy.'
' stop liking him more and more'
' do you think he really deserves someone like you? ' Cause he definitely deserves better'
' the look on his face is so hurt when he sees you, don't get tricked by the smiles he gives you, You dont know what he could really be thinking'
' come on you're not that egoistic to just start liking him and use him for your benefit, or are you?'
...
' i know that these thoughts aren't probably true, but...who really knows.'
Hours and hours of thinking, imagining, dreaming.
,, Katsuki can you tell me something?"
,, Hm?"
,,.. if you three were drowning... who would you help get out of the water, and who would you drown with?"
,, what the fuck are you talking about?"
,, ...you'd save Kirishima... and then drown with Izuku."
,,...i -"
________
Dreaming the past.
A photograph of the creek:
A woman is in my water,
a woman where i pull into the curve magpies quarreling in the trees,
a wallaby drinking upstream-
a woman facedown
where my water is dark with deep
and tannin from the gums,
The girl sees him.
Her mouth opens.
You could put a pebble in,
fill her mouth with pebbles,
but she runs,
falls and runs
up the hill and
into the house and
out the window and
up the tree and
onto the roof and
into the sky
and
up
into the sun.
A photograph of a roof:
I am a girl. I stand on corrugated iron, screaming.
I slip and fall.
I break my arm, my wrist, my ribs on the ground.
I howl and shake and howl and shake and howl and howl
and howl.
I am in a bed in a room in a pub
and all
I can hear is
Mom.
All I can see is water, a woman in
water, a girl weeping and falling,
rust and bleat and hit and blood.
i shake and
all I can hear
is my voice calling out to Mom.
"You didn't tell me!"
And Mom says nothing
because she is a girl
and she's eyes and open mouth and
break and sky.
Mom suffered too.
________
Mom's by the window again; she says , "well here we are"
Mom's cross-legged, making ice cream.
It's the middle of the night. I can see out the window how the moon is like a spoonful of ice cream, like when you scrape
your spoon against the top of the tub and it comes up in a
perfect coil.
Mom says, "This will taste fantastic, Katsuki ," and I'm four and I'm
on our kitchen counter kicking my heels against the cabinets.
Dad comes in.
He says,
"Mitsuki?"
"Yes?" says Mom.
"It's two in the morning."
"Perfect ice cream weather."
"Why is Katsuki awake?"
"I needed his help."
"To make ice cream?"
"To eat ice cream."
Dad can't help himself ; he grins,
and Mom grins
and their light is my light.
'i can't be that kid anymore mom, i can't be like the kid i used to be and it's all your fault mom'
past
past
past.
What a pitiful word.
________
' as soon as i get better... as soon as i get out of here..i'll just wonder places with him...with Eijiro, the only person there that i can look at and feel warm, but...isn't that ...selfish? Do i really like him or do i like the way he makes me feel? shit ...i- i dont know. '
'am i really a good person that deserves him?'
' make sure you become one with you're so afraid you're not'
'...i will.'
,, Wanna' tell us more about him?"
,, yeah ...sure"... fascinating... is what Katsuki is . The way he thinks, the way he sees the way he looks in my eyes sometimes... I adore it all. He seems so harsh to others but i don't understand how do they see him like that, 'cause every time he looks angry at someone and that person turns from him, his face changes. His eyes look tired and to me.. to me it seems that he just wants to feel like there is someone here for him, like he has someone... To me...He's just so beautiful ..."
,, Do you want know what kind of look you have on your face right now?"
,, hm?"
,, you look like you're so in love with this boy"
in love?
I thought a lot about these words before going to sleep.
Its a weird phrase 'in' love, like it's a sea you drown in, or a town you live in. You don't get to be 'in' anything else—
in friendship or in anger or in hope.
All you can be in is love.
And even though I'd never been in love, I knew what it was like to be 'in' a feeling, to be not just surrounded by it but permeated by it,the way my thoughts spiraled, i was 'in' the spiral. The idea of being in a feeling gave language to something i couldn't describe before,created a form for it, .. and even though i didn't understand the feeling of being 'in' love before...i think i'm starting to understand now...and i hope Katsuki will too.
Words- 2321
Damn i really posted a chapter by the end of the week and kept my promise, i'm so proud of my lazy ass omfg.
Anyways-
Hope you liked this chapter!