DISCLAIMER: Lost is owned by a lot of other people. None of them are me. Inspired by Susie Suh's song "Recognition." I don't own that either.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Struggling To Breath
By Constantine
I am unsure how I managed to find this secluded stretch of sand where salvation teases my fingertips like a summer's breeze. I didn't come here looking for this peace that acts as a salve to the rugged pieces of me. I don't know why I came here at all. Not knowing where they would lead me and not caring where I was lead, I let the ghost whispers of the jungle be my guide. All I knew was the aching need that coursed its way from my stomach, up my throat, and out of my mouth as a ragged sigh that told me to run; to continue running. To run like my blood knows how. It's a compulsion that streams through my body, humming a song in a familiar key.
He looked at me like my soul was his to ravage. He wished to crawl into his battle scarred scrubs and place me on an operating table. "It belonged to the man I loved." I screamed. "It belonged to the man I killed." My voice scraped over the tears to release itself into the air that aimed to stifle me. Its thick, cold fingers camouflaged themselves around my neck making it difficult to breathe. Of course, ever since that day it has been impossible to breathe like before. All of the oxygen on this earth can't maneuver its way past the brick of guilt that lays massive and heavy in my chest.
So, how did I get here? How did I get to this place where the ocean's aroma assaults my nose with promises I never asked for? How did I get to this moment where I look into eyes that are dark with the knowledge of me? I run my fingers through her dark hair and hope my eyes don't scare her with the truth I lay at her feet. The heat of the sand beneath me soaks into my jeans while her namesake bronzes my skin.
Her hand lifts to my face and caresses something from my cheek. A tear glistens on her thumb as she runs it over the outline of my lips. My breath catches because I'm afraid that I've shown her too much of me . . . too much of the parts that cry for release and beg for forgiveness they should never know.
I stop breathing while her eyes scan every angle of me. I want to give her what she seeks. I know I don't deserve her, but need rings out above my nobility as I lean forward and taste her lips for the fist time. For days that bled into weeks we quietly worked our way through a crooked maze of emotion to reach this point. More tears leak from my eyes because this is my first time kissing someone who knows me absolutely. My confessions bind her heart to mine and create a kiss that is soft and intense.
I have known for far too long that heaven is out of my grasp, but right now a slice of it trickles onto my tongue. She opens to me, for me, with me and I push forward sinking unfiltered hopes into her mouth. This sweet pain is deliciously unbearable, but I continue because I fear stopping will only leave the inability to exist. Her fingers graze the hair at my temples while my thumb traces her jaw line. A fire sinks lower and lower within my body as our lips linger. The kiss comes to a slow, excruciating end and my eyes remain closed as I inhale a breath that trembles on its virgin legs.
The brick that thirsts to devour anything attempting passage remains, but it is no longer whole. Fresh air filters through its ruddy cracks and coats my soul in a sparse blanket of deliverance. My eyes open and I try to resist drowning in a trust that exhales my name. I ache to say something profound that will mark this moment but my voice gets caught as my heart stumbles over this unfamiliar terrain.
"It's okay," she whispers. And it is, because I can breathe again.
The End