"Together, we take a different path."
All existence is born of thought, and all her thoughts grow at the speed of pain. Willfully wearing it like a shroud, now bleeding, from a once beating heart of adoration, permitting anguish to reign, picking away the eschar of her past, never expecting the damage to mend. She is the walking wounded, bound by a tyrant called opprobrium, beginning each new day descending just a little further down.
Expectations lead to disappointment, soon to be followed by resentment.
"I am the mistake" was all she could say.
The pieces of both had formed from other lives once lived and possibilities still to come. Their bodies were like nesting eggs. The further you delved, the smaller the parts of their hearts became and with each decreasing size came a more elegant understanding of their inner workings as individuals and how they functioned as one.
Creatures formed from base elemental materials, discarded bones, and shells cast out from the sea. Items retaining toxic heavy metals, poisonous to each other's touch. They are the forgotten pieces of nature, burning with life anew. Intertwined in the roots of a dying tree and the horns of long-dead animals, everything buried mutates into fertile embryones. Pearls and precious metals united, all held together by magnetism. A brain that grows within a brain, a heart within a heart, all which came before. Fine, intricately woven organ lives within layers of dedication that so few could ever understand.
She can feel it slowly rising. It starts deliberately and resounding, pounding, hiding somewhere in her mind recesses. Gradually it vibrates and grows from within as new life sprouts forth. Memories return in particles, like elements that wander through space, slipping between passing celestial bodies.
It's only those who have truly been touched and have had the words of infinite possibilities whispered in their ears. Tinnitus of cosmic creation, never ceasing in its atonal song of purpose, a melody that always comes at a price. As the voices sing louder with each passing moment, there is no tuning out, only to tune in, to listen even closer than before, almost hearing the secrets of the universe.
Whispering in her ear, he spoke for the first time. "I love you."
Shame led to sensations of being undeserving, resulting in despair, scouring for a way to purge the defilement, allowing her soul to hemorrhage and seep through those unhealed crevices where all light escapes.
"As we tend this land together, may it begin to heal our heart and soul." He then fell silent.
They sat holding hands, finding beauty in the ashes, basking in the warmth, waiting. The reconstitution of two disembodied souls, not as a tenement lodger but as the sole tenant.
"One not littered with the remnants of our past."
Gradually they became entwined within each other's hearts. Quietly they watched as the world they knew gently burnt away.