letters in an empty room (part 1)
🕑 Added 2024-11-28 18:53:39 +0000 UTCwe will do this in parts. it'll be more fun that way.
i'm only going to include this in the first part, but it will apply to all of them that i post here: trigger warning for arachnophobia and sexual assault.
what i will be posting each day for a bit is a relatively spoiler-free excerpt, a series of letters that may be found in a room empty, save for cobwebs and a single statue buried in bed sheets and a cage of stone-cast thorns.
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Sweet Cyanne,
I cannot know how long I wept when first I heard the news.
At once I thought to join you,
But torn by tragedy, my mind
Was found dislocated entirely from the unmourning march of time,
Until I woke in sweat-stained sheets, mired in tears, and blood,
And the rot of freshly mercied fantasies that would now never come to pass.
The boys were bickering again below, til late,
And now had I no one to stand at watch,
To give me ease,
And be sure that their foul tempers did not blow them
Like a tempest draft,
Into my room by chance where they might express their ire upon the meekest subject near,
As they never once before had done except
In my most uncharitable dreams.
And did you know, my sweet Cyanne,
How all my fears were scraped up like a sandbar,
That they might keep you from washing out to sea?
But now the tide's gone out;
There's nothing left but scum,
And sorrow, and flotsam memories,
And the sullen shadows on the wall at which I still jump,
With no one here to soothe me.
Only when it was too dark for shadows did I dare
To brave the aisles of the dying lights,
To brave the icy biting of the lukewarm air,
And to bravely look upon your face once more,
With love, and fury,
And thunderous resignation to truths I
Too easily believed.
You were no prettier as stone,
As to my eye you'd always been.
I stole solace one more time
From the stillness of your step,
When I disgorged the meager contents of my innards ungracefully below you.
To your silence I was grateful,
For I knew I could not stomach the unkind words
You never would have said.
My blind stayed abandoned even as I languished at your feet,
You would chastise my imprudence,
I was sure,
You would remind me of the paramountcy of my health,
And comb my hair over my ears to tie the bluff
Around my flushing face,
Which I would pray in warring parts both that you didn't see,
Or did, but found no cause to turn away.
And how did your blindfold come undone, I wondered,
That precious knot which should have
Tied you tight and shielded
You from the lonely world?
It was my morning ritual,
To lose my hand in the lace between your fingers,
That you might lend me your
Talent
Attention
Dependence
In renewing daily our vows to vouchsafe
Each other against the barren wilderness.
You would tie the blindfold prim
And I'd forget the knot again--
Around, under, through and over?
But the bowtie suited your frame better,
Little corners, peeking pretty...
And who would see beneath their blinds
How greedily I marked you as my own?
And still you ever sweetly
Ever naively
Placed your life into my palm,
Not knowing what a precious weight it was
That it would make even Atlas blush to hold.
So there I scanned every horizon
Feigning bare-faced fits of hopeful fear.
Would she be here, there I wondered,
Breath abaiting, waiting for me
To take you in my arms and glance--
Snap! Photo finish, frozen dear
Locked forever in an unending
Embrace, romance, prison d'être,
To which you never once committed.
But the sun rose,
And the colors were not beautiful.
They smeared and streaked ungracefully across the sky,
And by midmorning the bitter cold began
To outweigh my desire to succumb,
And I knew I could not stay a moment longer,
Nor depart, or permit you to a rest unbothered.
I know you will forgive me, Cyanne,
Sweetness that you are,
For the several dents you suffered
As I sloughed you through the halls,
To foregone destinations I hadn't yet determined
The pretense under which to bring you.
I must confess I seemed hysteric,
When your pinky came undone.
Imagine, if you will, my girlish grinning,
Scrambling to fetch a falling finger,
And beaming madly, clutching tightly,
Ghoulish kissing it all better,
Weeping madly as I onwards crawled.
Such is how I've come to have you
Once more in my room as all
Of patron, patient, muse and amor,
Watching over even now
As I write both the thousandth of these letters,
And the first which you'll have ever heard.
Sweet Cyanne, I am rapt to have you here,
As I know that you shall never leave.
