When the darkness gets easier, you know you're sinking deeper, becoming dead yourself.

I stayed there, curled up into the warmth of your body, under the blankets, like something soft in a shell. Your arms were firm as rock around me.

I looked down at my stomach. I grabbed at it, seeing how much fat I could lift up in a roll. "Don't worry," you said, one eye open again like a crocodile watching me. "You're beautiful." You tipped your head back. "Beautiful," you murmured. "Perfect.

You said you knew the perfect place to run to. A place that was empty of people, and buildings, and far, far away. A place covered in blood-red earth and sleeping life. A place longing to come alive again. It's a place for disappearing, you'd said, a place for getting lost... and for getting found. I'll take you there, you'd said. And I could say that I agreed.

When the darkness gets easier, you know you're sinking deeper, becoming dead yourself.

I could hear you, talking to the daffodils and tulips, whispering to the fairies that lived inside their petals. Each separate flower had a different family inside it.

If there'd been an astronaut on the moon right then, I'm sure I could have seen him. Perhaps he could have looked down and seen me too... the only one who could.