( isn't that the millionaire fucking dollar question. a headline rewritten so much she barely bleeds anymore, conditionally in love with her stardom: adored only when she's fucking or bleeding. forgotten when she isn't: a shelved project, the faded film reel of beauty that looks best in the soft-light focus of misery. she's heard it in the mouths of men more, loving with one hand and appraising with the other. horrified to realize they've bet their savings on a chipped diamond. leaked tapes, rehab stints, press poison, shining on command until collapsing. lowered market value. bad fucking investment, zero return. the shit she's done, the things she's swallowed, just to stay kept.
what the hell happened to you? like she broke herself, not the carelessness of a hundred different hands that passed her around. like she should be blamed for being left to fix herself, without any blueprint for where the goddamn broken pieces are meant to go. like it's all nervous breakdown, and not being let down.
she just didn't expect jake to be the one to ask next, the one man who should know the cost of sparkle, where he chased it into a cage: steel cuffs, iron bars. the prison they make for themselves, in pursuit of the unreachable. love's always been the prize, for ani — but he should know better than her that love's never safe, never free. that sometimes it fucks you raw, robs you blind, leaves you empty.
he might as well have dangled her under a jewelry loupe and called her defective. her wrist goes slack in his grip. marionette with its strings cut, the killing blow. a heavy curtain-fall of silence. her breath holds so long it feels like rebellion against living, lungs burning. a slow, off-screen death. it sounds like it, in her throat — desdemona's last gasp, othello's hands closing around her throat — when she murmurs, )
I grew up. ( old, champagne-flat: ) You missed it.
( in a world that didn't let it happen softly. get smart about it, get mean about it, get desperate about it. just get up when they knock you off the pedestal. keep climbing until they can't knock you down anymore. isn't that how it always goes? his hair tickles her chin just before her head lolls to the side. grateful he isn't looking at her anymore because she can feel it. the cruel, little spike of tears on her eyelashes. good thing she stopped crying on cue and learned to make it silent. )
If you don't like what you came back to, door's right fucking there. ( venom under velvet, defensive. hurt. ) Bet you already mapped the fastest way out, huh?
no subject
what the hell happened to you? like she broke herself, not the carelessness of a hundred different hands that passed her around. like she should be blamed for being left to fix herself, without any blueprint for where the goddamn broken pieces are meant to go. like it's all nervous breakdown, and not being let down.
she just didn't expect jake to be the one to ask next, the one man who should know the cost of sparkle, where he chased it into a cage: steel cuffs, iron bars. the prison they make for themselves, in pursuit of the unreachable. love's always been the prize, for ani — but he should know better than her that love's never safe, never free. that sometimes it fucks you raw, robs you blind, leaves you empty.
he might as well have dangled her under a jewelry loupe and called her defective. her wrist goes slack in his grip. marionette with its strings cut, the killing blow. a heavy curtain-fall of silence. her breath holds so long it feels like rebellion against living, lungs burning. a slow, off-screen death. it sounds like it, in her throat — desdemona's last gasp, othello's hands closing around her throat — when she murmurs, )
I grew up. ( old, champagne-flat: ) You missed it.
( in a world that didn't let it happen softly. get smart about it, get mean about it, get desperate about it. just get up when they knock you off the pedestal. keep climbing until they can't knock you down anymore. isn't that how it always goes? his hair tickles her chin just before her head lolls to the side. grateful he isn't looking at her anymore because she can feel it. the cruel, little spike of tears on her eyelashes. good thing she stopped crying on cue and learned to make it silent. )
If you don't like what you came back to, door's right fucking there. ( venom under velvet, defensive. hurt. ) Bet you already mapped the fastest way out, huh?