Tales of the Loveless

I’ll press you to me, and in my heart thorns will grow. Once your hand is on my heart, thorns will prick your delicate fingers, and blood will trickle down from your nails, breaking off into rivulets at your nail beds. Your spine will crumple. And you will stare, pleading at me. I did not harm you; I promise you, I loved you. But it was my hallowed heart, its wanton lust for pain glorified in my eyes and thundering in your ear as the blood rushes more. I love your fingers and your arms, I hated seeing them destroyed. 

The core of my body is hollow. The tin-man chest, with nothing inside. There are only metal fractures, pieced together by good intentions. I sink gradually again, this time into a small, falling slumber. Gently, the tin-man breaks against the hard concrete. Little, minute and trembling shards scatter. The tin-man still breathes, but he is shattered. 

I was a coward, and a poor one at best, because I was ashamed of not only my arms and legs but of the absence of my soul. Some cowards crawl back to the recesses of their shells, but I lie wide, with a plume fine and delicate. My head swirls with stale thoughts. I am a coward in the way I love; I shall never hold the hand of a boy with the soft hands of innocence and naivety. I know far too little of the world to be amazed by it, and too much to love it, and that is why I am a coward.