memory rushes in
then washes you away
i am losing you to the sea

i'll break from the weight of my mind
but your ghost I will gladly bear

–son lux

▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄▄

      EVERY TIME THEY
put me in the padded cell to calm down, I close my eyes and remember everything.

    All the times I used to lash out on Caterina, throw her insecurities in her face. You don't have parents, Caterina. I'm all you have. All those times my mental disability, my illness, the disorder I inherited from my father bubbled to the surface and sucked the life out of her. Caterina was never unstable, never ill.

    I was.

    I love you, she once told me, after one of my episodes. I love you, and so I'll stay with you, and I'll love every version of you.

    The girl was no angel. She was cantankerous, a real pain. She was hotheaded and stubborn, too passionate for the world we live in.

    And yet, Caterina was the epitome of goodness. Caterina, who was raised on the streets, who starved for days on end and was abused by her uncle, didn't have a single mean bone in her body.

    That night, more than a month ago, is still a blur to me, and yet, the one feeling I wish to abolish from my mind plays again and again. The feel of the glass shard in my hand as it penetrated her abdomen. My angel, falling into my hands.

    They had been covering for me. For the murder that I committed. My father and grandmother. All that time. That horrid smell was the love of my life's body decomposing somewhere in the house, a house I've spent countless nights in for the past month, speaking to none other than myself, the other me.

    I rest my forehead against the cushioned wall, breathing in, then breathing out.

    The love of my life was the one bearing the consequences of my disorder all those years. Not me. Everything was a damn projection. I was, am, in my own, tailored hell.

    Now, as I stare between the four walls I was thrown in over two years ago, I feel cold fingers wrap around my own.

    I look to my right. Caterina's soft turquoise eyes are filled with innocence and motherly love as she gazes into my very being and smiles, that smart, cheeky smile that screams malice and danger.

    This time, I smile back. She's never felt more real.