Drenched In Sappho's Blood, I Fight For You

Everything I have done was done in love, yet the need for revenge has clouded my clear skies and blotted out the clear truth I once lived by. Now, my heart burns with anger and misery as we stare one another down across the rubble. She looks beautiful, her hair flying out around her in the wind, her eyes blazing. I used to know those eyes so well, I could always tell what they were feeling, but now they pierce right through me and I feel that I am looking at a stranger. She stands tall, her sword clasped tight in one hand, her long knife in the other. That knife was a gift from me, years ago. Oh, how much things have changed.

My best friend, my love, my confidante and my comrade; that’s what she was to me. She knew everything about me, and I knew everything about her. We were inseparable. Then it happened. We had a fight, I don’t even remember what it was about, but all that matters now is that we fought. The next time we saw one another, she had a lover; a man, no less. We had never been partners in that way, but it still felt like an immense betrayal. I saw them kiss and my heart splintered, breaking apart inside me and snapping something in my soul. I would never be the same again.

She, meanwhile, seemed happy, like the loss of her best friend meant nothing to her. Like this man I’d never even met was all she needed in life. A dark need started to grow within me to see her hurt and cry and break as I had, to earn my place back at her side not by stepping up to her, but by dragging her down to me. Almost three months after I lost her, I killed her precious lover and I watched her, dry eyed and unresponsive, hide his body. She never called the police, never reported him missing, never shed a single tear. My fury boiled over inside and I swore that I would not rest until I had seen her cry.

Days later, she killed my sister, then I killed her brother. She killed my parents and I killed hers. We soaked each other’s lives in the blood of our loved ones, sacrifices to the cause, collateral to our greater purposes. I felt nothing but my need, my anger, my continued love for this powerful woman I had once called ‘friend’. She shed no tears, she fought back just as hard, and I wondered all along what exactly she was fighting for. Not for me, surely, and not for that man, nameless in my memory. Confusion and curiosity clouded my anger only a little, and blood continued to flow between our outstretched, clawing hands. I held my breath for her, to see her cry, for some small glimpse of emotion, but she stood tall and strong, apparently unaffected by everything I did. Did I really mean so little to her, after all this time? After everything I had done for her, with her, to her, could she not grant me just one single tear?

It all came to a head today, when she killed the man I had hired as my henchman. I was furious that, even now, she was capable of getting so close me without me even noticing, crawling under my skin and making a home for herself in my veins. I screamed for her, burning up inside, and I destroyed the neighbourhood we had once called home. Through the smoke and the rubble, I saw her standing proud, eyes still dry and lips held straight, staring me down like a naughty child.

“Look what you’ve done now,” she sighed, long-suffering. “See what you’ve become. What you have reduced yourself to.” Furious and devastated, I threw myself at her and we met in glorious battle, our swords clashing together again and again like the heartbeat of some immense Goddess, our blood mixing on the concrete like when we were children and we swore to always be the most important person in each others lives. The massive and the miniscule, the future and the past, She and I and all that we were together, separately, in the spaces between our souls, seemed to fuse and fall away and become background noise to her breathing, her heartbeat, and finally, finally, the tears that started to stream down her dirty, bloodied face.

My heart burns with anger and misery as we stare one another down across the rubble. She looks beautiful, her hair flying out around her in the wind, her eyes blazing. I used to know those eyes so well, I could always tell what they were feeling, and now I can again as she sobs, chest heaving with her beautiful, perfect pain. She stands tall still, her sword hanging loosely in one hand, her long knife hooked into her belt. She slumps, as if in slow motion, to her knees in the rubble. Oh, how much things have changed. How beautiful this new reality seems in the light of her vulnerability.

“I think that we’re going to have to accept that we are equals and nether one of us will ever be able to win.” The announcement comes, slightly choked, after a few minutes of her recovering and me hovering nearby, wanting to comfort her and simultaneously soak up all of her pain for my own perverse and desperate pleasure.

“Is this you surrendering?” I ask, confused, but she shakes her gently and looks up at me with mixed emotions that I can’t even begin to dissect.

“It is a peace offering; an armistice.”

“I see that as a surrender.”

“No!” She cries out, passionate and strong again in the face of my stubbornness, flying to her feet once more. “I respect you far too much to force you to lose. I see now, however, that you don’t me hold in equally high regard.”

“I do!” I gasp, pained by her disappointment in me. “I respect you enough to offer you a glorious death in honourable battle! I guess that’s just me though.” She looks up at me again, her eyes still wet but burning anew with something I’ve never seen before, some foreign power that makes me feel weak in the knees and causes my heart to tremble in its confines. When she speaks, it is like the rest of the universe falls silent in the face of her perfection.

“This does not change the facts: death is inevitable and I know that you will find glory, no matter what. I have faith in your strength and your dedication. But, even after everything that we’ve been through, I love you. I love you and I would rather fight by your side than be the reason the world is deprived of your existence.” Shock and joy rush in equal measure through my rapidly weakening body and I drop my sword in ecstatic awe. I move forward as though in a trance and fall to my knees at her feet.

“My love,” I weep, her warm hands reaching out to hold my face with a tenderness I hardly deserve; delicate fingers, dripping with the blood of many, wipe away my tears and I feel that I have finally, after so long in the cold, come home. “My love, I surrender.”

“Good girl,” she purrs gently, pulling me up to stand strong at her side once more, back where I belong. She kisses me now, gentle and unhurried, as though all the world will wait for us, then she takes my hand and, together at last, we turn towards the horizon.

Smiling and tearful, blood stained and perfect, we walk away, hand in hand, towards the sinking sun and her burning, bloody, limitless sky. I have never been more glad to have lost in my life.