Author: aroceu

the man behind the curtain

the ways I said I love you
are the ways you could not see.
in the way my eyes were at the side of your face
examining the angle of your jaw, the tone of your cheek, the slight slight
slight of your eyelashes before you blink. I would begin a line of code with you

{

and in it, were the beers you slid into my minifridge, the times you;
opened my door like it was yours binary code in your name and in my;
fingers itching for your mouth and eyes, your;
eyes and mouth;
on mine on mine on mine;

and sometimes when you were looking at the sky instead of me the taste of warm beer was the taste of you;
all cloudy and greylike like the grey of your storms;
while you were bright in the eye;

}

I was watching.
and I saw.
and I loved you.

error: error: error:
did you know?

my, my, my

It is cold and wet, like the inside of your mouth, and he is big and smiling at you on the sidewalk. It had rained yesterday. He is glass, but not the type of glass you have heard about before, fragile and delicate and easy to break. He is not like that, no; he is big and glass and beaming and the tips of your fingers are damp. You ask yourself if you are nervous (you are); you ask yourself if he makes you nervous (he does) (he is); so you swallow and look up to the sky. It is heavy, and dark, like the things you are afraid of, like the things that weigh on your heart. It is heavy and dark and you swallow, you talk about it. You talk about the things that you fear (darkness) (heaviness) (he, too far away and too close) and you are desperate to get dry again—desperate to return behind the line, where he will wave goodbye and his gaze will linger and you will turn away before he can say more. His mouth is small and pale and it makes your heart pace like hurricane; you are the glass now, easy to shatter and easy to touch, especially when his fingers wrap around yours and he tells you to be quiet, he’s going to kiss you now. The sound around your ears are the vibrations beneath the earth’s crust and he waits (for you) (to say no) (to pull away) and you are shaking, so close to breaking apart, and you say okay the moment the sky splits open.

He is cold and wet, big and smiling. You taste the inside of his mouth.

look back

in twos, or threes, he’ll break his
own heart; he will not want a kiss
or eighty texts of i love you. he
breathes hard like he is dying, when
the fire is just fluorescent.

remember when, he asks, do you
know how it feels? he talks of last
spring like it was only yesterday.
the edges of his vision are tainted
white and cold. remember when,
he asks.

he is orpheus, feet buried by the
ocean. everything you have said
he has forgotten.

when eden fell

your eyes are too close together and far apart and when
the world spins on its axis is when you have found me,
again. in turn, i do not let you see past your eyeglasses,
when your love is so bright it sets me ablaze. my petals
have fallen and my crops are blackened by your heart.

i say i love you too, but your wildfire roars in my ears.
i cannot hear a thing.

Know Where To Run (fic, game)

Preview of the Know Where To Run project (landing page) Preview of the Know Where To Run project, fic/interactive page, with 6 sections of a fic forming a hexagon over a faded out middle button that says US

Mirror Links: @ Archive of Our Own

Summary: But if you listened, you could hear her heartbeat, as loud and as fast as your own. It’s a reminder you’re both alive.

Word Count: 3856w

Warnings: Character deaths (off screen), gore – body horror and general violence, blood, body decay, spores and cordyceps-esque infections, mutilation – puncturing the skin, vomit, sexual content, zombies, rot and decay, food, needles

“But we fight… for every second we get to spend with each other. Whether it’s two minutes, or two days… we don’t give that up. I don’t want to give that up.”
– Riley Abel, The Last of Us