Where We Ended

by Ashley Munoz

For those who stare at the darkness fully aware it’s staring back. Keep looking. Become the monster you always feared, the one who once controlled you. Step out of that inky mass as a new creature with teeth and nails and an appetite for fear.

“You’re the closest I’ll ever get to heaven, to redemption or being found worthy. I look at you, and I see hope. Isn’t that all heaven is? Hope, eternity spent in the one place we can’t imagine living without? You’re that for me. You’re my religion, Natty. My place of worship and devotion. God wants nothing to do with me, but for some reason he still gave me you.”

“Brother, please do explain to me why the fuck you’ve cuffed yourself to my wife?”

“Anything happens to you, Caelum, and my brain won’t matter. Nor my heart, or anything else that allows me to breathe. It’s you or it’s nothing, my love.”

“I’ve wanted to make you my wife since I was seven years old. Whenever you’re ready to carry my last name, you’re welcome to have it.”

“Where else would I go, Caelum? You’re my home, my heart…my entire fucking soul.”

You are my sun, my moon. My life. I will come back for you.

“I saw you on that dock, hunting frogs, and I thought you were the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. Then I looked up and saw Silas glaring at me, and I knew right then and there you’d always be between us. You took my heart just as you took his, but you only gave yours to him. But I think at Christmas, you gave me some pieces too. I have to believe that I found my way in there, Artie, before I leave this earth. Please tell me I did.”

“It was always his, Alec.” He laughed, and then coughed. “Well then, at least I’ll take a chunk with me into the grave. I can see the way you’re trying to hold me here, while death is hovering above me. I’ll die, knowing I’ve claimed some part of that heart.” I couldn’t speak, so I just continued to stroke his hair. “Seeing you felt like finding a pair of wings. But there was only one of us who could fly, and I’m glad it’s Silas. Just promise me that you’ll love each other after this. Whatever happened, push it behind you and finally be together. Start a family.”

“Good because I was a shit brother to you, Silas, but you were the best big brother. I love you. I may have wanted to kill you just so I could have Artie, but I loved you. I’ll always love you. I need you to know that.”

“I’d die a thousand times over if it meant I could keep you safe. My life is not worth living without you in it, Caelum. You’ve been my forever since my life started. If you were to end, then I would too. The fact that you didn’t realize that…it kills me.”

“What of my love for you, Silas? Can I not also want to move the sky and crack the earth just to protect you? Loving you has been the greatest joy of my life, and if it meant that I lost a few pieces of myself along the way then it was worth it. Your mom did what she felt was best to keep us both safe.”

“She knew our love was made of the very same substance that makes the stars stay in the sky, and the currents that spread throughout the rivers. We’re an ocean wave: violent, turbulent and steadfast. No time apart would ever diminish that.”

“Ombre light falls across the panes of my heart, whispering of all the darkness you draw upon. I have land to build my home upon but my soul has no roots. Apart from you, I’ll be forever without a place to dwell.”

“You, my darling light are a whisper on the wind. Here to love me, and gone with my last breath. I vow to carry you with me into the depths of death, wherever it may take me. I will carry your heart with me and it will allow me to live once more.”

“I see flowers and think of your heart. Soft, resilient and beautiful, and I pray that no wind will come through and uproot you from my life. Yet I know, even in separation in this life, or death itself will not keep me from chasing you. Because the wind may try to take you, but I am vaster than the sky. So I will chain the swells of storms, I will blind the sun and bind the ocean if it means I get to keep you. I will ruin this very earth if it means you’ll be mine.”