ECHO III - PERSONAL SPACE AND THE LACK THEREOF

The room is dark. The sheets are soft but nearly scratchy on the knees. There is no sound outside in the night. If they looked at the window they would see nothing past it. And. And. And she takes her hand and runs her thumb down the side. You are so nice to me I can't put it into words. She moves closer, closer, closer, until there's no space between them. Closer. He takes her in his arms, pulls them tighter, closer. Closer. There is no amount of distance they'll accept. Not if it means being something else. If there was some way to tangle together with them until they were so close their molecules were the same then they'd find it. Because right now it feels as close as they'll ever get, like they would be pulled from the ground as not two people but as a single body with two heads and two hearts and eight limbs. She can imagine that they'll never come apart, never, not fraying at the end. They can no longer think about where he ends and where they begin. There is danger in being so close, that if one of you catches fire then the other will follow too, but that's not important. Not right now. Not right now because right now he is with him. This is what humans are supposed to look like, so close that there is overlap, running into another and muddled together into epicenity. There is- There is this- She buries her body, she wants to let herself melt away, into her. They need to be even closer, untilthereisnospacebetweenthem, then maybe he'll feel it all. Because he knows he is already ablaze and she is oil and already, already they are burning away together. So they want to pull away, want to be singular again, want to burn in silence and also they can't. Already too close. So the prescription of fire has been written and they are taking it, feeling the heat singe his nerves away, eating through his limbs and working closer and closer to his spine. Up her back and to her brain, to tear through her mind. And that is when he knows that this is too close, because there they will see Him. Do you understand that? It's too close. Because, because, because because because, then that means that she can see all of her, can hold them in her hands and break him. They have rolled over for him, shown their belly, and that means that they are close enough to kill. This is when the heat grows too great, when they feel where his nervous system once was and she pulls away, tries to, strings snapping between them like ripping apart a seam. You have to understand. That closeness, no matter how much she wants it, is something that will never be his to have, because as much as he needs it, to give that intimacy to someone else is a death sentence. When someone else gets to hold your heart in their hands you have to trust that they will not dig their thumbs into it. When you are so close to someone else that your heart can feel theirs. Do you see that? It makes this terror run through her like nothing else. Because what else can she do except know that this is what will feed her in the end, but in order to get there he has to be okay with showing his throat and allowing him to show his teeth and nails. And this, this is what they want, what that hunger is for. It's ridiculous, that hunger and fear are the same to him, that it's so scary. And maybe the worst part to her is that she's not sure that she'd show the same to someone else, because when they have been close to others they weren't quite granted that decency by him. So there's immediately this kind of imbalance. And, since he knows he can't reciprocate, then what's the point of asking at all? Or, should she return the feeling, she knows she'd consume his heart before anything else. This means there's kind of a level of harm to this feeling. Then he prays, and prays, and prays and prays to stop- stop this feeling, stop wanting stop begging stop stop put an end to this all. So then she lays her head on his shoulder and waits and lets and feels nothing about it at all. Like they wanted. And still! Still, there is this dull ache, this feeling that nothing will ever make go away, and they indulge in it, and in others. Because if everything must be guilty, then he might as well get something from it. This is how the guilt is resolved, it has to be. Because otherwise, she thinks, she won't be able to live his entire life like this. There has to still be more. After this.