God of Monsters

Doesn’t matter where we go, when, or even if, we ever come back, they’ll always be our home.

Shuttering it out of sight, I tip my head back, letting the heat warm my skin, and smile back at my old friend. “Showy bastard.”

“What have I done to deserve this life with you?”

For those of us who are stripped of that possibility, whose stories are cut short, either by cruelty, or by choice, our endings may be different, but they don’t have to be any less joyful and happy. They don’t have to be perfect, because sometimes the world doesn’t play that way.

He’s the first deep breath after drowning. The promise of new life.

“You once told me you didn’t deserve me.” A tear slips down my cheek, falling onto his warm skin beneath me. “There is no man left in this world who will ever compare to you, Titus. Ever.”

The scars and shame are permanently etched in my mind. A part of me is still adrift on that black, placid sea, and I don’t know if I’ll ever find safe footing again. I don’t know if I can ever feel whole again.

As though my insides have been ripped out, carved to a hollow shell of what I was.

“But I’m not--”

“You’re perfect. Please.”

Shoving at the soldier is useless, as another approaches to form a gate, refusing his passage. “I’ll wait for you! I swear it!”