Bleed. Ink from a pen; pointy nib searing parchment; tearing into the depths of heartfelt secrets deep within the pages. Bleed. Sunrise early in the morning; orange and yellow hues colliding with darkened purples and blues, an exquisite sight to behold in the earliest hours. Bleed; holding the knife in her hand she met it with skin and cut away her pain, carving out her secrets and lies and deception; she knew no limits. Bleed. The once unpigmented sink a stain of her innards; her heart was falling out as the cuts drew deeper; her eyes were nothing but blackened sockets, the flesh eaten away by the tip of the blade. Her lips were stained with gore; she coughed, blood spewed from her mouth coating her reflection; she was nothing; she felt nothing, she was a hollow shell of the person she used to be. Bleed. Soulless creatures; they took him away on wings made of his bones; the curve of his lips now the curve of their wings; the sound of his laughter spilling out of their parted mouths instead. Bleed. Leak like the eyes that cried while they hauled him away with their claws made of his teeth, flow like the tears that poured when she realized she would never see the way his eyes would crinkle when he laughed or the way his nose would scrunch after he found something distasteful; she yearned for his arms that would encircle her every morning, pulling her body closer while she buried her face in his neck and breathed in his scent of hope. He would get better; she told herself every morning; he will get better; he did not get better. Bleed. Bleed like her heart as the pink in his cheeks turned to pale, and the laughter died in his throat; bleed like her heart onto parchment as they wrote their own story, but death never lets you rewrite your own ending. Bleed. Bleed as her life drains away and her sun never shines, as the light in her eyes fades to nothing; the love she once felt replaced by the haunting of a boy’s heart that used to belong to her. “You are my sun,” He would say, “You chase away my ghosts.” Now his words echo, resounding off the corridors of her heart made of stone that used to be becoming and beautiful. “You are my sun,” He would say, “When you touch me, it is as if my whole world is alight with your flame.” He wrote her poems and showed her the stars; they basked in the earliest hours to watch the sun bleed into the darkened sky; he would look into her eyes and claim he saw the universe as if everything he would ever need lay with her. Bleed. Bleed like the look in her eyes when she found him in their wings, as she found him in their claws, as he seemed to resign to his fate. “You are mine,” He would say, “No matter what life, no matter what universe, I will always find you, I will always love you.” Promises made under the stars were now empty. Bleed. Ink from a pen; pointy nib searing parchment, their fates once intertwined now destined to two different paths, one in heaven and one on earth. Bleed. Sunrise, early in the morning as the sky is painted anew, colors from the universe basking in the glow of the sun. Bleed. Bleed. Bleed. Take the knife to her wrists and cut; cut away her pain until not even she remained; cut away her memories of him that she relived every moment; cut away the promises and the stars. Bleed. Bleed away his empty words and his lies that she naively believed. “I will always find you,” He would say. “I will always find you.” She carved away at everything she once was; the part of him that still existed even beneath her skin. “Wait for me,” he would whisper into her hair as he would silently sob; her asleep in his encircling arms. Her answer was never askew, a slight murmur into his skin, an exhalation of breath, “For you, I will always wait.”