LOVE ME LIKE A CURSE
"A tattoo."
It had stretched wide across his shoulder blades, bold and intricate, wings unfolding in dark symmetry. Black feathers etched into flesh, not soft or angelic, but sharp, deliberate, every line precise. And from the center, running down the length of his spine, a blade—sleek, merciless—anchored the wings together, as if he were bound to it, or perhaps born from it.—they all existed first in memory, then in paint. And yet, every line my brush drew was precise, intimate, as though I had touched his skin in another life, known the weight of it, the pull of it.
I didn’t pause. I couldn’t. Each stroke seemed necessary, demanded, as if the brush itself were feeding on my need to see it