The Savage

A Story by RWZ

The darker side of love

There is no fight left. I have ceased to be anything concrete. My matter is all but matter, made up of atomic particles that have no weight except for corporeality. I am nothing beyond the solid mass of my body, my organs, my fingers and toes. I am nothing beyond the lungs that inhale a weightless life, a darkened mist of used oxygen, and tar and nicotine trails within the bronchi hairs that move and sway as God had made us. I look out the window, position my head in the glare of the sun, I feel no warmth, hollow eyes that see the blues of the sky, but perceive nothing more than a colour that means naught but a colour.

What were once dreams of a life yet to be made, and experience yet to be discovered, they have withered and faded with every breath I take. Within the silence of my heavy thoughts, the profound has been lost; I have become insubstantial and half gone. This is not madness, not anymore. At the core of madness lies passion; there is no madness without it. And yet, my ardent days have surpassed my will to be insane. I fight only the urge to wound myself, to harm my old scarred body. I am already marked, white and grey streak my fingers where glass once penetrated deep into my flesh. Years old red lines still struggle to heal, burns and knives once battled on the warzone that is my skin, muscle, and bone. I am looking for answers I know I contain already, but with every sunrise a new day does not dawn, and the answers remain unfound.

The urge to flee gets stronger with every second on the slow clock, as time passes at the rate of a snail. I yearn for that small corner of the world where amnesty lies like a heap of dust. I yearn to forgive the enemies of a sound mind, and contented heart. My enemies. Myself. In this limitless universe, my sense of joy has bounds, and to be free is nothing but a waning wish. Trapped inside a shell of shock, my wild rage has become a small feeble fiend, gnawing at my toxic soul like a wilding child that knew no love.

I did know Love. I met Her one unsuspecting day on a September afternoon. She slithered in like a snake, and coiled herself around my soul. With the years and months that passed, She spawned little devils; monsters that grew bigger and scalier, with fire in their breath and poison in their claws. No warning came with double-edged Love, Her blade slices whom she pleases, kills whom she wills, and saves those who needed her most. Love had her own ways, ways beyond our mortal control. She adhered to no laws and broke down walls that stood tall and tough for centuries. She owed nothing, and so gave herself aimlessly to those unsuspecting of her wrath. For Love had many faces, faces beyond cognitive faculty, beyond coherence. We cannot depend on Love, for She is an unrelenting force that still knew no constant.

Love has her own demons to battle, and so we must battle them with her when she deigns to touch any one of us fools. I do not claim to know all Her curves and edges; I claim nothing but my own story. My claims are but a product of my own war, an exhaustive battle of weaknesses. Love’s plunder is the power of the strong; she destroys the mighty in defeat of reason, merciless and unafraid of the horror she brings. Why should Love care who falls or who stands, her purpose is purposeless, only to make men big or small, feeble or strong. Her unyielding grip tightens around the victims of her fury, enclosing our dusks with the promise of night terrors, and sweat soaked pillows. She played a garbage game, a trickster with cunning plans for ruin.

When I was a child, I thought Love walked with God. She is unsafe. She is unsure. She doubts, and makes us doubt with her, because Love couldn’t walk alone. I shall not die for Her while she cast me to her wolves, I shall not die at all. I remain broken, but with a frail desire to live in spite of the knowledge that she may never be tamed.