Like a whisper in the back of my mind, golden seal... and vines. But it's so hushed, so quiet, so insignificant that my ears fail to hear it— fail to understand the importance behind those specific things. They're easily lost to the tides, to the sound of the blood in my ears, the calls of gulls in the sky, the harmony of the world around me— all those voices (It's too much, I can't help it.) getting louder with each action, each word from Sia. There's not just one or two, but a whole populous, all the withered souls of the Damned that I'd witnessed perish before me, marble eyes reaping the lost before they can pass to greater levels (Don't leave me!).  

Someone may say that there are ways to mend broken relationships, that with time and care they will eventually stitch themselves back together, that even the deepest wounds heal with time. But for my bitter soul, for my reckless habits and uncontrollable needs, there is no waiting game to play, no precious love that can save what I've so foolishly discarded. There's nothing to mend these hollow hearts, nothing to fill these empty eyes— what I've done is brought ruin to not one (my own), but two lives (Sikeax), selfish and disgusting in the way I've tossed aside all the love, all the help that my ill mind needs craves. Look where I've ended up because of my inability to realize what I was doing (You're hurting it! Stop it please! Stop! STOP IT!), living behind a falsity so dense I still cannot escape it, clawing at the walls of my confines with bloodied fingertips in desperation.

I return, unannounced and silent as the fraction of conscious existence returned to my eyes, gold capturing the melancholic presence of the goddess. Again she says that name, goldenseal, and I remember where I am, why I am standing beside the rolling waves of blue and caught up in the pain of my existence. Hesitance, gaping mouth the only evidence I have that I heard her, unable to accumulate enough courage to offer a response— the sweltering emotion that eats away at the silence between us makes my blood run cold, spit thick as I swallow harshly. She does not wait for me to answer.

She explains goldenseal to me, harsh tones dripping with a need to escape, to flee from the monster and take minutes to linger alone where I could not find her, where no one could. She is all sharpened edges and salt poured into open wounds, cold heart and colder gaze that leaves me wishing I was a pitiful shadow rather than a physical disappointment. I wallow in the unbearable pain of my anxiety, chewed apart by the irrational fears that present themselves to me in the form of grueling scenarios, unsettling ideas of betrayal and torment, a false reality that I do not trust. I will poison myself, bite down into something that will bring nothing but the sweet escape I craved with a fierce and subtle passion, where my teeth will sink into foreign flora and offer up the chance of release— perhaps that is the better scenario.

But what of Sia? I'll ask, and they'll respond.

(He doesn't love me anymore, I- I can't give him what he needs, he- he's gone.)(Weak, weak weakw eakweakweakweak you can't even let go)(Love is foolish, don't you think Kye? Love is pointless. It's unnecessary, but we are emotional creatures, and we cannot live in such independence. Our love is packaged in so many ways, but it is always there.)(You are nothing, nothing. Sick.)

And that is the end, the others just a sea of unintelligible whispers, a lull of familiar sounds melting together to stir and comfort my lost mind. The thoughts I'd had goldenseal... vines, are swept away by the current of worry and doubt, sizzling self loathing and distaste for the childish behaviour developed so obliviously. I seek the comfort of her presence, the delicate relationship fractured by my inability to recognize the pain I'd caused. Through all the tormenting moments of darkness and wretched scents, months of slick flesh and bubbling distance, controlled by something twisted and as unstable as myself— mocking the trembling child I'd loved so closely, who could not stand on her own against the harsh silence of winter. I stood before her and mocked her like something heartless and cruel, gruesome grin stretching over tattered cheeks and poison tainting my every exhale. I scared her.

But those memories are so faded, so tattered and worn as they'd aged over the years, swallowed up by matters less more important, pushed aside carelessly and stored away in a dark crevice. They aren't brought to conscious light, never looked over with a sure mind (not yet), waiting for their time to come when they would be revealed— when I would suffer and break and finally give in to the self destruction. For now they lie dormant, and I can live another day in manageable pain, with crumbling rationality and childish behaviour.

The stare following the question (Don't look at me! Stop, stop stop I'm a monster! Look what I've done), lingering for a moment too long on the layered tissue, the tattered remnants of still present hatred, a loathing against myself turned physical. Stop stop please just don't, I want to beg on my knees, to tell her that she should just walk away now, forget about me and everything I am, let  me wither away here on this lonely island where my corpse could rot and no one would bat an eye— where I could melt into the sands and get swept away in the high tides, all my memories and suffering, all of my broken feelings and ruined dreams, taken away by the hungry waters. Maybe it'd be for the best. "Stop it."

"I can go on my own, if you would prefer some alone time—" Away from me. The words stop short, caught in my mouth before I can stitch them along with the rest. I watch her eat away at the plants, mechanic in her movements and eyes traveling along the scarring of her skin, gold wavering at the idea of who did that to her (me?).