Waking Up Beside You
© Black Tangled Heart
The Argentinean could never bring himself to say goodbye. The grief that
gripped his heart was always too immense to utter a coherent farewell. It meant
that he'd be losing not only someone he cared for, but a part of himself as
well. He had grappled with this thought every time he saw pale eyelids close
and breath dissolve.
He stood with
He didn't want to stay with the mourners; he was stricken with enough grief as
it already was. The world had grown darker with the loss of another soul. His
own world was permanently stained a deep, endless black. Freedom, beauty, truth
and especially love, did nothing to bring lush colour
to his life. He had once known love- now all he knew was a perturbing void that
only seclusion could begin to fill. Nini couldn't
provide him with any comfort tonight.
Nini was above her reputation as an apocalyptic whore
- he knew that a fragile layer existed beneath her cynicism and demeanour, red as the blood on her lips and beneath her
veins. It wouldn't suffice. He only desired the perpetual embrace of solitude.
If he hadn't been numb to tears, they would have been coursing down his brown
face. The absence of an embrace - of a passion-glazed body pressed against his
own - has caused his skin to ripple with gooseflesh. He found his way up to the
garret he had come to accept as his shelter. However, no place could shield his
emotional torment, his emptiness.
He sank onto his bed and pulled the stained covers around him. Pale, silvery
moonlight shone on his pillow like a fragile spider web. He closed his eyes,
and a face he had repressed for so long surfaced.
Her liquid eyes, raven tresses, pale skin and lush
mouth…Roxanne…
"I've been so alone for so long," the words tumbled from his dry,
parched lips. Speaking had seemed to take such effort during these past few
hours. There had been such a tumbling tempest of love and hate, of betrayal and
redemption that words had left him. Now they returned, ethereal; each breath a tiny sliver of a vivid memory.
"Forgotten by the world…forgotten to myself…" He rolled over and
inhaled deeply. Nini's perfume laced the sheets that
curled around his trembling body. She had lain beneath him short days ago, but
would not make love to him that night, beneath a star-clustered sky. His voice
cracked the stale air. His heart thudded in his chest.
Pain was a beautiful thing. It sliced open his heart and exposed the tarnished
innards of his soul, ravaged by remorse. Pain coiled around his bones and
spread like fire through his blood - a fanged, yellow-eyed serpent. It was
truly a raw emotion, the loss of it breaking his every hope.
"Your effervescent eyes have awakened me…and brushed the dust away…but I
knew you'd never stay…" Roxanne's dark irises had always been brimming
with passion. She had been the sole woman that brought light to the seemingly
eternal darkness of his existence, but wonderful things had always seemed to
slip from the Argentinean's grasp.
"So I memorized the colour of your eyes as I
lost myself inside you…and I memorized the way our legs entwined as I drifted
off beside you…" He could almost hear her warm, contented breathing and
feel the weight of her dewy cheek upon his chest as they slept after making
glorious love…
"I miss…God, I miss waking up beside you…"
He reminisced her infectious warmth. He craved her deep and satisfying kisses.
She was a parallel universe of fervour, an escape
from the harsh reality outside the tiny, rotting garret and the smoky dance
floor inside the Moulin Rouge. She was his very pulse.
Their dance was engraved upon his memory, each step solidifying the bond
between them. Her figure fit so easily against him, like a puzzle piece. He had
lifted her effortlessly, much as she had brought him out of so many miserable
encounters with his sickness. She soothed his physical and emotional scars. She
was the balm upon his soul.
"At night I cling to you…I'm so afraid…afraid the day will come and I'll
wake up to find you gone…" And one day, she had dissolved from his arms.
He remembered awakening in the cold dawn to find that he lay alone. At the mere
memory, tears finally crept across his face.
"But you'd promised that you'd not abandon me…and kissed my fears away…but
I woke up to that day…" He could feel the luscious kisses she had always
covered him with when their passions were high and raw. He could feel her silky
fingertips upon his lips and through his hair. And yet, all the same, she
wasn't in his arms, lulled to dreams by love or awakened by compassion.
"But I memorized the way our eyes would meet, reflected in the bathroom
mirror…and I memorized your naked silhouette as you slowly brushed your
hair…" He ached to touch her wondrous curves and lose himself in her dark
eyes. He often stared at his reflection and craved to catch a glimpse of her
ivory flesh or hear her opulent laughter. She felt like home to him. Now that
the woman he adored had escaped the sordid Underworld, the Argentinean had no knowledge
of home, or love.
"I've been so alone for so long…I forgot how much it hurts to wake up so
alone…" He had basked in the warmth she radiated, and now awoke each
luminescent golden dawn, cold and empty. He had never known such pain.
"I memorized how warm your body felt as you lay half-asleep beside me…and
I memorized the way the sunlight filled the room and played upon your
body…" He touched the pillow where his cheek lay, and found it stained
with his tears. He drew in a long, shaky breath as he remembered watching her
sleep. She bled warmth that he sweetly succumbed to. He cherished the memory of
holding her content and beautiful body. She made him whole; she made him human…
"I miss…God, I miss waking up beside you…"
Song Used:
“Waking Up Beside You” Stabbing Westward