had a circular debate on whether or not to show up - but i feared if i stayed put you'd show up at my home.

i don't want you here.

some things are meant to be untouched by hands like yours - heavy with sinful honey that stuck to everything.

then again you apparently already knew where i lived. i don't want to know how or why but now i fear i won't be able to sleep - i can't sleep anywhere.

you've injected me with insomnia and now every bed but yours feels like a mattress full of needles.

i shrug on my coat and i hate you.

walking through the maze i pause at the kitchen again - a grotesque painting of the past - pools of rubies and flesh twitching and my mums gasping and - i shake my head.

my aunt is passed out at the table - glass in her hand and hair stuck to her face - she had been crying.

some people aren't meant to be parents - but she wasn't so bad, genuinely she loved me and i loved her.

but she's not a parent.

i'm just as much of an orphan as you are, tom.

yet i don't hate the world for it like you do.

you're only so angry because you're alone, you know. you'd never admit it - you probably don't even realize. shoving that truth so far into the back of your mind that it got swallowed by shadows and dust.

walking to her made me feel like an undertaker as i lifted her heavy head and brushed her hair from her face. wetting a cloth to wipe the crusted traces of sadness from her eyes - god she looks so much like mum.

after rinsing out the glass i place a kiss to her forehead and go to meet you - my own grim reaper.

my mother did a blade.

my aunt did alcohol.

i suppose you'll be my cause of death, it's only fitting.

the women in this family are built for demise.

i hate that i don't care.

snow crunches like brittle bone beneath my boots and the buildings are over-watchers, windows following me and i get swallowed by dread as i near the church.

i always hated that building. i hated the states, i hated the paintings, i hated the pews, i hated the men, i hated the women.

the judgement was choking me every sunday and i'd have to crawl out with blood caked under my nails and the thought god doesn't love you chewing on my brain till one day i decided i didn't love him - there wasn't anything to love.

the same could be said to you.

i turn to the cobblestone and wrought iron gates of the graveyard and in the distance i see you - a shadow figure hovering and for a moment i wonder if you're an angel greeting someone long passed.

or damning them - who knows.

maybe you're laughing at them given the fact you've outlived yet another person.

the stones glow as i pass - ice slick and reflecting old names and dates and pure memories - by feet freeze in the ground as i come to you.

why are we here?

did you love them?

i gulp down the bile and stare at the two slabs of marble - here lies marshall and francine berkley - i look back at you and my lip is trembling and i want to blame the cold.

fuck you.

you turn - wool coat snug on your shoulders and you look sharp and dark like the stars had been blown out of the sky. but your eyes grow damp and heavy like the patches of dirt that surround us.

i'll take that as a yes.

i bite my lip to where it bleeds and your thumb wipes it away like it's ritual.

i understand, you said softly.

i hate you, no you don't. you'll never understand.

did you get my parents are dead as well?

i feel a storm in my throat and i get sick at the sight of you - you never knew them to love. there's a difference. your knowing comes from wondering not experience. and you don't love - you love nothing and no one.

not even yourself.

you blink at me as if i'd slapped you.

i wish i had.

i wish i had let you die.

for the first time you believe me.