Matthew

His eyes pierced me like his knife through that pancake with too much sugar. He said that he could eyeball it, he said it'd be fine. Why did I trust him each time he lied that same smile of ease even though we both knew he was wrong.

A tongue upon a roof, a lip drowning in maple and blueberries. We ate in silence though our eyes said a thousand words, he asked why I couldn't look at him the same I did last night.

He asked why I lost the passion to paint his canvas, rather wanting pen on paper. He told me to look at him with the burning eyes of Sodom, he told me to look at him. He screamed at me to look at him.

The crash of a knife onto an empty plate encompassed the empty atmosphere, making me flinch. A tsk and an eye roll coming from a boy of burning cities, a boy whose hair echoed the sun scorching my skin.

His turn swift and yet the wind wasn't tough enough to wipe away his flames nor my tears.

The water pressure enough for the fire brigade and yet flames lay at the tips of crimson, my eyes didn't meet his because he would burn me.

Torches annihilated my skin, my cells becoming crisp like his father's bacon. I dared a lookup, just to learn it only added fuel. Just to learn that I burnt down my house and his temple.

"What's wrong with you?"

Tears of fury brimmed his lids, he looked confused and wondered if he was just momentary for me. I knew that with the way his head tilted just slightly.

I shrugged.

"Matthew you know that's not fair, you can't act like I mean the world to you and then the next second you can't even look at me."

Tears brimmed my eyes, my lower lips quivered with maple slowly dripping down its side.

"Look at me."

My plate didn't leave my vision, no matter how many time I felt his lips quiver as he said my name. No matter how his voice held my name before pushing of a cliff for its love letters to slip into a forest.

He pulled my head up, force full and yet his fingers left a welcoming burn just under my chin. His eyes twinkled, was it the beauty that he bore or the tears he dare not share?

Was it love or need for momentary satisfaction? To feel love for a moment in the arms of the other, as our breaths were in sync.

"Matthew, what do you want from me,"

I shook my head, tears of crystal dispersed down my cheek.

What did I want from him?

What did I want from myself?

"Matthew, please tell me something. I don't know what to feel."

I grabbed his cheek, wiping away tears as more fell. His fire being smothered, and olive returned to his skin. Cherry gleaming every shade of kiss me softly. Hazel daring me to grab my paint and make his canvas beautiful, daring me to feel free in hazel.

I kissed him.

If felt like the last time, tears running down both our cheeks. I savoured every taste of cherry on my tongue as though it were the last on earth, crimson tears leaving me and colliding with him.

His arm drifted to my neck, his sniffles became louder.

He pulled my head ever closer into his, as we rose to our feet. Unable to move like leeches stuck to the other's skin; we melted into the other, losing where I began and he ended. And yet it felt so right.

We tried to seal our love letters, letting blue and red dance in our lips as mutters and moans hit the other's throat.

I wonder why we did that.

Did we know that our time was limited, did we realise that the time to fall further into the embrace of the other could last four and a half days more until fear held us back.

Did we know we would last, or did we dare think that our tears would bind us together under heaven?

The pure youthful gallantry we had was admirable, the feeling of invincible sat in the wings of butterflies between our stomachs.

He tasted like cherry and yet I was drunk on wine.

I let go tears still drifting down my cheek, nose still tasting cherry lip balm. He looked relieved and yet ever more hurt, as though he were alight, skin burning. If I were to kiss him once more my sanity would be a tale and yet my sanity was better told by bodies around a fire than instead of his momentary pleasure.

After he went to the bathroom, stifled cries of realisation as he saw a pillar in his memory she was the wife of Lot. Her name never mentioned as fault led her and curiosity anointed her, stupid.

We slept back to each other and yet like magnets his blonde flaunted it's beauty atop my shirt.

The days passed similar to the last, I would tell myself that I should stop and yet a kiss dotted my lips and a plethora his cheek, forehead and that sweet spot at the end of his neck. His eyes had encompassed my body and yet I have freedom. How peculiar an emotion, but I loved it.

To taste heaven though I felt the pits of hell would swallow me in the shower was okay. Because heaven was batting eyelashes, subtle smiles and a,

"Can I kiss you?"

Uttered from the mouth of a sinner or angel.

"Matthew."

"Yes."

"We're on our way, make sure you guys are ready." Her voice was soothing, I could almost hear my mother's hair in that black hair clip. She never stopped wearing it like that.

"Okay, love you."

"Love you more, bye"

She hung up. I could hear car speeding on the freeway so we had around an hour or so, I told him such as he rolled up his mock neck to hide remnants of night and dawn at his neck. He was nearly done just washing those pots and pans, with his duffel bag at the sofa.

He finished, I finished. We both sat on the floor watching the time and a football match from last night. He switched it off before turning to his phone -charging- to play a song by Sufjan Steven, The only thing.

"I heard this song and I've been playing it for at least three weeks."

I smiled, it was similar to him. He turned to me with a smile of le soliel et pourpre.

Gazes interlocked, we had a subconscious feeling that this was about it. For now or forever.

My right hand slowly drifting to his stray hairs, they felt like flowers in my palm. I pushed them behind his ear, as his trance-like gaze remained on me. Each breath intense though they were muffled by the music.

Lips parted like a mailbox, I wondered whether I was supposed to leave their atmosphere. Cherry was so bright that day and yet we hid in the shadows of night. The irony.

"Can I kiss you?" I asked.

He, in teeth of Aphrodite, smiled as he shook his head in a way my hand would remain in-between his locks. Butterflies returned as they had every time before, as we leaned eyes shut.

To feel his embrace was similar to feeling my worries lifted, to only have the thoughts of hair gripping and arms pulling you impossibly closer. I forgot everything for a minute.

He made me forget, but I ask myself if escapism is worth it when you lose yourself in a world of imaginary. A world in which we shared breakfast and lounged in the other's embrace as we watch cartoons, carelessly.

"I'm gonna miss this, "

Eyes of crimson brought me to my senses -somewhat- as he parted an inch, I felt the breeze atop my lip where for years I told myself that I would gain a beard.

"Me too."

Was is it sorrow or holding onto the last of that good. I kissed him as a hand laid in gold and another detailing stars along his spine.

"So how was your little escapade, " my mother other asked with that same black hair clip.

His eyes drifted to me as he sat with his black mock neck with a loose shirt saying 'moon rocket' and 'join the race to outer space '.

"Amazing, "

He looked me up and down as though he was fighting a grin at that very moment. We were children dancing in a garden, jumping in a lake half-naked to feel the cold heighten our senses.

He was staring out the window as those trees passed and that sun beamed on his face. A hand gripping at his knees allowing them to pick at his jeans.

A tongue swiped across his top lip, the engine halted. Muffled goodbyes yet all I saw was sunset atop olive. His vision left the sight of a setting sun and onto me again, whispering goodbye for now with that special twinkle.

"Bye," he muttered for my ears only.

"Goodbye, "

He smiled briefly, just bright enough to lighten up my world but not the atmosphere that would surround me as soon as I was in my room. Maybe he was like a book, immersing me in worlds of unknown just to vanish as soon as I set it aside.

Pages becoming pages again.

"What's for dinner?" My rambunctious brother asked with remnants of chocolate fudge coated his cheeks.

People would so often wonder if I were the older one each time he asked why the sky was blue and what content Africa was in. He wasn't dumb just stupid, but that was what made him a brother.

"I don't know, maybe you should make something," my mother stared down at her 'son'. Her eyes wondered if he was switched in hospital if so she would return him.

"Do I have to I was just...working,"

I snickered into my hand, " yup, with the chocolate and the fridge. I heard you've been working late shifts like 12 am to 3, isn't that stressful."

He deadpanned, cake in hand.

"Well at least I have a job,"

"You mean getting obese?"

He ran to me at lightning speed, I felt my body curl within itself as he attempted lifting my head. Smudging it with the remnants of velvety chocolate and what I supposed was buttercream icing. I screamed his name as I fought back.

"I'm gonna murder you, " scowling as buttercream ran down my chin.

He laughed until I tackled him, I felt sweat and diabetes-inducing icing reach a cold spot at the tip of my nose. We were rolling in the carpet like pigs as our mother screamed for us to stop dirtying it and acting like kids.

We didn't stop, not until I gave him a wet willy and hid in my room. He screamed as he felt the coldness in his ear, swore my casket was going to be delivered via third-class postage for next Thursday.

I had no regrets.

"Get out of there, NOW!!!" he screamed attempting to hit the door down without causing too much damage because he knew our parent would have his name on a t-shirt.

"No"

We continued until our mother told us dinner was ready, I waited until I thought he'd left. Just to be met by a slap across the back of the head, pain seething through my hisses and rubbing to elevate it. I washed my face then sat down in the chair next to my brother.

We prayed with our hand together as my brother began salivating over the lasagna, which was no surprise as he was a bottomless pit and my parents were both half Italian.

It would be sacrilegious for them to not know how to cook.

"So you and Josh seem very close, I never thought you'd be allowed to go on a boys trip, " hint of jealousy dotting his tongue as he cut another piece to engulf.

"Yeah, we are close."

He teased, " Is he a better brother than me or something?"

I wish he was just a brother, but luck was a four-leaf clover. Uncommon.