Babble: It's not really poetry, and it's not really prose. I'm not overly sure what it is, but I couldn't help writing it. Let me know what you think either here, or at [email protected]

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Watching You Bleed

I won't hold you in my arms and watch you bleed.

How many times had I heard those words or a variation of them? Dozens? Hundreds? I don't know. He never seemed to tire of saying them and he always meant them yet somehow they never seemed to matter. He never heard me and I never heard him.

Longing

Like moth's to a flame, or yin and yang. The pull was always there no matter how hard we tried to deny. Tried to fight. Tried to run away from it. Run away from each other.

I ran first, I always did. I ran so long and hard that I ended up back in the same place, only everything had changed somehow. Everything was a little off, just a tad. The pieces never seemed to quite fit together again.

Next he ran. Though he always denied he did. Sometimes I believe he was the one who ran first all those many years ago. He ran and maybe that changed everything. Because he never seemed to stop running. Whether it was to me or away from me.

Yin and Yang

Pull me closer. Shove me away.

I did it to him and he did it to me.

Desire

It was never fully sated. Never completely fulfilled. It could fill both of us up so completely that for moments at a time we forgot everything but each other.

When he was inside me, when I was drowning in his heat, drowning in his eyes. When his heart was fully open to me. Then and only then I was alive.

But when he wasn't I was merely existing and the ache would begin to grow inside of me. The ache that only he could take away.

Confusion

It was always there on his face in the morning. First his arms would tighten pulling me tight against his naked body. His eyes would drift open and seeing my face he would smile.

It was a smile no one ever saw but me. A smile reserved for those early morning hours before he was fully awake. A time when his mind was on autopilot and his heart, his feelings, his soul was in control.

All too briefly our eyes would meet and communicate the words we were too afraid or too unwilling to say. Those were the best moments of my day.

Then he would blink, the confusion would return and he would ready himself to leave. To leave me alone and naked in what I considered was our bed.

I know he always promised himself that this would never happen again. That the next time the longing, the desire, the need, would build between us he would be strong enough to walk away.

But he was lying to himself.

He knew it and I knew it. So he never said the words aloud.

Already his eyes were lingering on me. Warming my blood in my veins until it began to throb in anticipation, in desire, in need.

Need

One night it had just gotten to be too much. The tension between us, the arguments they spiked until we reacted. The tension that had been growing for years finally overwhelmed us.

One touch.

In the end that's all it took. A single brushing of the hands. A caress that had happened countless times before was enough to send us both out of control and over the edge into oblivion.

Passion

It simply consumed us. I never felt as out of control and at the same time as powerful as I did when I was touching him.

He as so big, so strong. Was he part man, part machine, the unfeeling monster? No emotions, never out of control. Always angry.

How many descriptions were used to try to describe him? Lies, all of them.

He felt. He needed, he craved…

He broke.

In my arms he broke. And because he did, because he could, I healed.

A plus sign

There on a white stick. It was all it took to change everything.

This wasn't supposed to happen, not like this, never like this. We weren't ready for this. I wasn't ready for this. There was so much left unsaid between us. So much pain to be worked through.

Yet there it was.

A plus sign on a stick.

Blood

Brakes screeching…

A sickening thud…

Screams…

Glass shattering…

And blood too much blood, staining the world with its power.

His body lying at odd angles. It was incomprehensible to me, he'd just been smiling at me, just been walking towards me and now he was twisted, broken at my feet.

Blood…

Everywhere…

On my hands, on my face, painting my soul.

His head is in my lap as I scream for help, as I beg him not to leave me.

His eyes flutter open. The blue of his eyes were dazed only halfway alert, they were flickering the light in them dying. He was leaving and this time he wouldn't be back.

Desperation

I tell him about the baby. Magically the eyes clear sharpening into the brilliant blue that I knew so well. The eyes that had haunted me for years.

His hand on my stomach. Wonder replacing the pain on his face.

"…love…"

It was the first time love had ever been mentioned between us. Who did he love? Me? The baby? Both of us?

My tears dripped on his face cleansing the blood. I would never know for his hand fell from my body, and his eyes closed.

Forever.

Devastation

Pain and grief we were old friends. We've known each other for years, and yet.

And yet.

They're destroying me.

The bed remains empty. I'll never sleep in it again. My arms remain empty they'll never be filled again. How do you go on in a world your merely existing in?

Grief

Monica locked herself in her room for days. No mother should ever have to bury a child. Much less 3 children for she had lost him twice.

Alan made his way to Courtland Street. Seeking the oblivion that only an old friend/demon could give him.

Edward's eyes lost the spark and he aged overnight.

Lila suffered in silence and when the stroke happened a part of her welcomed it.

Emily didn't cope at all. Anger. Denial. Rage. She wanted to blame. She wanted to curse. She didn't want to cry, yet that's all she could do.

A.J. didn't fall, as many had feared he would. But something died in him that day. And in that death grew a determination to honor the brother he had both loved and hated.

Sonny shut down. The darkness took over and no one seemed to know how to pull him out of it not even Carly.

And Carly…

Carly loved.

She was more than I gave her credit for. I finally saw the reason he refused to cut her out of his life. In the end he had been right about her.

Rage

Vengeance. Blame. Anger. Hate. They're inside of me, filling me up. Slowly they fill the ache that still exists inside of me, but there is no outlet for it.

The death he'd always known was coming for him, had finally claimed him, yet it wasn't the death he was prepared for. It wasn't premeditated or intentional.

It had been an accident. And somehow that made it all the worse.

An 80 year-old man has a heart attack one sunny fall day while driving his car and the world changes.

Where can my rage go now?

Cold

I always felt cold now. Maybe I always would. I'd gotten so used to the heat that he would provide I took it for granted. Now that heat was gone, as was he, and I was alone.

My hand rests on my still flat stomach.

Not alone.

But that was my secret. The baby was mine and only mine. He would have hated my ownership claims but I didn't care. The baby was mine the way he should have been.

Tracing the plaque, embossed with his name, with my finger, I memorized the curves, burning it into my heart. This was so much nicer than the monument the Q's had erected for their long dead son. He would never be there, yet he wasn't here either.

Distraction

All it took was a moment and I was away. I was free. I was on a bus that was taking me away from there, and I would never look back. Walking away from everyone, from everything, was easy. Staying would have been impossible. I took only the most important things with me, the rest was the past.

I pulled my bag closer to me, unwilling to let it go. My hand rests on my stomach, my eyes on the window, searching for what I don't know.

Free

I found it 3 weeks later. A small island that looked like any one of the dozens of other islands that surrounded it in the Pacific. It didn't look special but it was. It had what I was looking for, so I stayed.

The car found me a week later.

Somehow I knew it would. There was no pressure, no conversation, no words, were even spoken. Just a car and a man, sent by people to let me know I would never be alone.

My hand on my stomach…if only they knew.

Racing

I rented the bike I knew I could handle and ignored the disbelieving look of the clerk. What did he know? He'd never been free.

I drove the road slowly, twice, trying to learn the twists and turns of it. The road hugging the side of a cliff in a series of sharp turns was the reason I'd chosen the island. The cliff on one side, the twisting road built for racing in the middle, and the ocean on the other side. It was perfect.

Almost…

The machine wasn't as powerful as I'd ridden before. The ride was different as well. There was no laughter, no racing, no leaning into the wind, no embracing.

There was no him. There would never be a him again.

The wind changed then and began to swirl around me and I knew it was time. Starting the engine I took off, and this time I raced. This time I opened the throttle full tilt. This time I clung to the belief he was racing with me.

Dangerous…

I knew it but I didn't care. My hand left the machine to open the container. Holding my breath I brought it aloft spilling it. Racing the road, turning when I should have wrecked I set him free.

The wind took him away from me and yet I still raced on. Tears were streaming down my face, making the road blurry, yet I felt no fear. I felt nothing.

Then with the wind in my face, stinging my eyes, brushing at the tears. I felt warm. For the first time in weeks I felt warm.

Bringing the bike to a halt, I slowly climbed off of it at the bottom of the cliff and look back at the road I'd traveled.

The air is still. Silent. Not a breath of air to be found anywhere. No trace of the wind I'd just been racing. No trace of Jason anywhere.

Except maybe there was. My hand touched my rounding stomach and I move towards the car I knew was waiting. The bike was no longer necessary he was home.

I won't hold you in my arms and watch you bleed.

I could never make him understand. As hard as I tried I could never make him see the truth. The only time I didn't bleed was when I was in his arms.