Arrows Through Archer

by Nash Summers

My heart collapsed that day. And now, I am an empty shell of the man I was supposed to become.

People could see the storm cloud hanging over my head and the phantom at my back.

I was broken now, and I was utterly unfixable.

There was no light at the end of the tunnel because there was no fucking tunnel. There was a pit and in that pit was nothing but darkness. In the center, stood I.

And the nights—God—the nights were darker than the hearts of twisted men. I’d never been somewhere so void of lights and noises and senses.

The air was full of some unknown atom—a particle that existed only here and now and only between us.

But I did because the music was too loud and the lights were too bright and my heart and my head were in a million separate pieces.

We always hurt the ones we love.” “Why’s that, do you think?” “So that we know they love us too.”

You and your silent fucking depression—you and your quiet heart and your fear of living.

The small moments of contentment weren’t worth this crippling pain. Life wasn’t worth this. How could it be when the people I loved most in the world were ghosts.

Hope was easy to hear, easy to see, but almost impossible to feel. At least for me.

Sometimes words weren’t enough. Sometimes words weren’t anything at all.

instead of using useless tools in a moment surrounded by darkness pushing at its edges, slowly, I reached out and laced my fingers with his.

“Do you think some people only have a certain amount of love inside of them? Or a certain amount of fucks to give? Because I do. And I think I’ve reached my quota.”

“You’ve got this old soul, and it’s serene and hushed and reminds me of the smell when it’s storming outside.”

I felt like I’d plucked each and every star from the sky and there was nothing left of that night but the darkness overhead.

No. This wasn’t one-sided. This—we—were magnetic. Between us ran a ley line. It was heady and deep, thicker than the Earth’s crust and hotter than its core.

“People are intuitive, whether or not they know it. They can see something isn’t right with me.”

I felt that soul-deep connection to him. It was an ethereal sensation of belonging and pride, like his happiness was linked to my own and mine to his.