Nocticadia

by Keri Lake

I stroked a hand across his dampened forehead, studying the adoration I refused to see before. The veneration of a powerful man. One the monsters in my head feared the most. It was in that moment, I believed him when he said he belonged to me. Like a vast ocean claimed by a single grain of sand. My dark sea. The mystifying depths that both captivated and terrified me. For so long, I struggled to accept and give love. I’d become jaded. Stingy. Untrusting. And because I so rarely relinquished a piece of myself to others, it hurt worse when it was stolen away–the times when the world reached its greedy hand into my life and tore away the pieces of what I loved most. I’d come to learn that at the heart of life was suffering, and pain was an inevitable consequence of love. A slow gnawing ache that began the moment we dared to admit what it was. The shadow behind every adoring glance. The anguish that punctuated those fleeting moments of peace. Love was also a sickness. An incurable disease. The kind that crawled inside the muscles and bones, and persisted long after death. As much as I wanted to bury the love of my mother, to harden myself so I wouldn’t have to face the crippling truth, I couldn’t. Burrowed deep into the roots, it blossomed from the wounds of my broken heart, tearing through the stitches that burned with memories of those who’d tried to hurt me. Sometimes, the pain was too much to bear. But sometimes it felt good, because it meant that I was capable of feeling ...