By Ouanessa Nana
Plunge or strike immediately, that’s what you’re supposed to do when there’s a clot of gore in the grasslands.
“There has to be an alternative,” Leland said. “We can leave tonight through the grasslands. No one will notice,”
He dashed through the sea-green weeds, and I hurtled behind him, following his every step. Leland would later explain these intricate bits, the splint seconds of our breaths, discerning and squarely sharp as he locked me in a trace with his oceanic eyes.
I’d take his fingers and make them trace the lines between my lips and hands, forgetting about the way the pressure of my life was jaded inside the laceration in my toes. The nail beds were fissured and cleft lilac by disaster and black rime.
It was easy to forget about the graze when his lips were so soft and delicate, when every inch of him felt like home.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked him, my breath rasping against my throat.
Every second with him slit me raw. It was a gnawing caress of strength, humility, and love I had to fight against every day for the danger my bones were so used to, for the lips I knew so well. Underneath me, society is as far away as the cosmos. Their demands shrink, and I am undone, an eclectic array of remembering him.
He nods, jerking open a latch on the ground hidden at the end of the farm. I lurched, my feet teetering.
My eyes glistened but the tears didn’t fall. I wanted to shatter, unbridle the hate in my heart and combust, set ablaze every connection until I held his heartbeat in my hands, not caring about the blood-stained on my fingers and flesh, not caring that I had put what I wanted first but instead I stilled, my lungs burning.
Pain pierces through my chest, sharp and pointy as he drops my hand, his throat shearing as he understands.
His gaze was unbearable. “This is the last time I’m going to see you isn’t it?”
My ribs turn to burnt crisps.
“She won’t let me,” I finally say as he disappears into the underground without me and my breath straggles through my barbed chest.