Bubblegum Fall

Inhale.

You think that's all you really have to remember, just to breathe.

It's not like they ever expect anything of you anyway.

You passed. You survived. You remembered to breathe. It must have been a fluke if you ever did something - some lucky accident.

Of course that's why they're shocked when you do, when you pull out your wand and unhesitatingly fire off curse after curse long after he has fallen, long after you should have fallen.

You think that if you can just remember to breathe the rest will come.

They whisper that you must think all the time of your poor crazy parents. They make sad eyes and pat you gently on the head and you know that they don't understand.

You blow bubbles with sickly pink bubblegum and make a wish with each bubble you pop.

They make more sad eyes and shake their heads when you can't quite stammer out a new spell - not as brilliant as his poor crazy parents were. Before. They watch with that strange bitter look that asks what could have possibly happened for them to make someone like you.

You smooth your bubblegum wrappers and place them next to hers in a careful stack that seems as fragile and passing as a pile of dead leaves.

You're the boy-who-almost-lived. The boy-who-breathed. You're a half-finished prophecy - still waiting to be formed into something special, something needed, something golden.

She twitches away from your inquisitive fingers, dropping another empty promise into your hands and pushing your fingers closed around a hollow dream that later, you'll stack with the rest of them.

And they only smile at you when your hands are covered with dirt and you can't help but coax something green. You wonder if it's because her eyes are green and you're so used to coaxing her - just remember to breathe.

She still stares unblinking with pale glass green eyes but you think she must have heard you because her breath still rasps in her chest like paper caught in a fan.

You find you're a half finished sculpture with the worst possible word hanging over your head - potential. Because that's really just saying you're not good enough (and you probably never will be). And you've been waiting so long now for someone to finish you that you're not sure anyone ever will.

You've all but given up when you realize he's right in front of you, that's he's been right in front of you for years. You smile slightly, thinking that his eyes are rather like hers only darker and more alive. When you reach out with your dirt-covered fingers to flit across his cheek he whispers The Prophecy between fumbling kisses.

You wonder if he'll really finish you or maybe you'll finish each other or maybe you are each other - just jagged pieces of the same broken prophecy trying to put themselves together again.

You teach him how to breathe and he does, deep, ragged breaths that are damp against your skin. In return he teaches you how to live and you think that maybe, just maybe, you can be the boy-who-lived-and-breathed together.

She still skitters back like a spider from the light and her fingers, just as spidery, still dance against your palm, leaving a trail of paper tears. You smile a little as he helps you smooth them now.

He coaxes you like a reluctant blossom, searches out your form from the unwanted slab of marble. You are his life's work, his masterpiece; you are what he will leave behind.

He carves deeper into you with each passing breath and you hold him tight to your chest, letting the jagged brokenness of it all press through your skin.

When he falls you fire off curse after curse, a curse for every bubble you popped. And like the fragile autumn leaves lives pass away.

You think that if you can just remember to breathe the rest will come.

Exhale.