Echo

People like Echo J. and Victor are born spiritually sick, for that kind they know not what they do. They lived in a starving world and that hunger drove them mad. Only by feeding on each other, in a childish sin did they become clean. They vandalized passion, as they grappled, biting, clawing, and screaming among the refuge of darkness. It was beyond the pale, though some, most, wouldn't notice. Between the midnight blue and charcoal grays, they struggled to become one, the stronger became the weaker, the lesser became the greater. In that circumstance, of biting, clawing and screaming they vanished. Two, pretending to be one, seeking to flee the high horses they paraded. Mostly for one, hard to tell which, it was an escape, a call to worship seeking forgiveness and salvation. Mostly for the other, hard to tell which, a way to spiritual union before a tabernacle of gilded dreams and straight out lies.

For Victor, she was a shrine to worship, for in that embrace he turned his back to his own sins. For a brief idolatrous time, an hour of apostasy, he felt human again, not the murderous wrathful thug, not the man that carried a bounty on his head. He, the part of him that is a thug, that keeps what he kills latched onto her and kept. Victor would look in the mirror and see a real killer stare coldly back.

As for Echo, she kept what she came with, the ignominy she wrongly assigned to herself. She wrought her own chains of sorrows. It allowed her to flee and put out of sight, her own authentic disgrace and remorse. She in moments of lucidity would see a prostitute in the mirror of her soul.

Somewhere between lunar white and onyx black is the truth. In there is why they wrestled with and against each other. His back to one side and her face to the other, twisting around eyes wide shut to what should've been an act of beauty. If he ever looked at the small truth, and he eventually did, is they both wanted better, both knew better, and they intentionally missed the mark. Instead, each week a new poison; they bit each other, they clawed each other, and they knifed each other. After all that's what thugs do.

The big truth being, they were afraid. Furthermore, that lovely, opulent rapture is exactly what kept them two halves. If Victor had the wisdom to forgive himself he could've been the husband, he wanted to be for her. If she, in a moment of clarity gave halt to her martyrdom and become her true self-a devoted pious wife- all would've been splendid. Instead, they continued to roll in the muck while screaming, clawing, and biting.

People like Echo J. and Victor are born spiritually sick, for that kind they know not what they do. If anything, they should've worshiped together sooner, for only then, they were free.