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"Let this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair."

Snow bled from the sky the night you determined your life was truly forfeit. You were dismembered in full. A few pieces of you had been flung out into the layered sleet of the streets, impacting among the screeching beasts of metal. A leg must be splayed somewhere along the concrete, just a few feet ahead of you. The resonance of your beating heart dulled in your ears as it slipped across the slush ridden asphalt, into the subway grates at your feet, expelling huffs of toxic heat. It hardly fazed you anymore.

Winter dealt a swift and unforgiving hand.

Mercury-vapor cast a lurid glare. Flashed blindingly in arrays of verdant green and abhorrent antimony from the neighbouring bodegas that lined the city street. Fatigue which stretched far beyond the physical curved in leaden crescent arcs throughout your skull, suctioned behind blown pupils. Became dearly woven beneath the fibers of faux fur and cracked, drying flesh; particles of flaking skin through a flushed valley of fresh integument. The thick layer of your coat was meant to protect, shield you from the uncharacteristic bitterness that laced the air’s wheezing timbre. Even this, even this, could not commit to its one appointed purpose. Perhaps you were being too harsh. After all, what impetus did you provide to drive your streak of uselessness, slate clean? What design resided within the body which you inhabited; pushed forward? Kept you alive? 

Why bother with questions that held unsavoury answers? 

You had hoped to carve substance out of your weak body upon the impending arrival of the holiday. Expectation had been forcibly injected through the rigid length of your upper arm, spread throughout the decades, coursed through thin veins alongside blood that rejected the modified formula. The system had never taken the form of peace in your life. Offered no support nor security, not in the manner in which it had continuously been promised. Lies, lies, lies. Should it come as any surprise? Despondency that once rested, awaited on the sidelines of the curved contours of a human shape, had morphed to intrinsic nature. Of course, you have been left disappointed since your first breath. 

Reliance within community provided similar results. The corner of your mouth twitched upwards, vastly lacking any honest amusement. Mist across withdrawn flickering irises dimmed as you lifted your neck to draw your focus away from the verge of blackened snow at your feet. Graced with only the attention of peripheral vision, mass crowds of muzzy figures disregarded you, passed you by. Labeled you a translucent and derelict pariah with a large sign gripped between frostbitten fingers and oh, how it screamed “Wrong!” 

All bodies basked in the ray of festive magnesium light, reflected and flashed across teeth like cubic zirconia as their stomach’s erupted with streams of ersatz laughter. They were all so much more adept than you when it came to playing pretend. A trickled harmony of bells emanated from some nearby shop, dotted through the white noise of vehicles and people. Superseded whatever thing unfurled inside to further hollow out the hole that alienation had punched through your chest. A pitiless reminder of the thick wall that separated you and all those you attempted to connect with. There must be some secret that everyone else seemed to be privy to, and withheld to pass on the knowledge. 

What was it? 

An aspect of human behaviour you had felt yourself begin to decline; silent complacency? Locked in a meek and purposeless existence, supplicant to the hope of a saviour; an eradication of the loneliness that crushed you beneath its force.

How could you even begin to break the wheel? 

Would there really be any point in attempting to do so, anyway?

With an unspoken farewell to the effervescent crowd, you focus your attention back on the overflow of cars on the road.

Everything blurred — sound muffled as the blood rushed through your ears and your surroundings tunneled, solid vision puddling into spots of light in the foreground. Spindles of cool ice whirled and cradled every inch of you in its unsympathetic arms, called out in a shadowed whisper. It could all be so simple - one step to the edge of the sidewalk, feet taking place of burnt rubber rolling over tarmac. There would be no room for clemency. No tenderness, when snouts of titanium kissed your torso and sent the flank flying from your hackles.

Split in two across the concrete jungle, vermilion blooming in smooth bouquets quicker than the pavement could soak up. It would be a befitting end, played off as 'unexpected' and 'tragic.' You could almost laugh — almost.

Money hungry pigs — a sudden and unwelcome final thought. Dentin grinded together like porcelain behind your chapped lips. They would likely hold a eulogy in honour of your little act. Set out cardboard cutouts that wept and danced around the importance of speaking up, "Donate to aid the cause! Create a safe space! You are never truly alone!" but they wouldn't remember your name; recall your story or the cause of your end.

Acrimony peered down the expanse of your legs, into the palms of your hands and pushed through your lungs as you made up your mind. The tip of your shoe toed the open space between aggregate and cobblestone, finally, you're moving —

An immediate explosion of heat bloomed with its heavy weight around your bicep. A thumb ghosted over the sensitive entry of your man-made inoculation with a soothed precision - as though the owner was somehow already familiar with the hidden wound. The hand was awfully gentle when it pulled you backward, away from the precipice of the sidewalk and the roar of countless engines. Its tug had you grappling in spite of its calm urgency, arms flailing outward to steady yourself as your boots slid across the slippery ground.

"What the — fuck?"

You shout with rabid aggression, the rush and spike in adrenaline kicking into overdrive as you are ripped from the confined whirlpool of fright and anger. You spin on the owner of crude disruption, any previous remnant of the moment before snuffed into nothing as you attempt to tear your arm away. Futile; the stranger's hold is relentless, trailed from its home on your upper arm to a strong hand wrapped around the small of your wrist. It wasn't harsh by any means. In fact — the fingers felt more of a steady anchor that held you to reality. Curled and pressed into the cuff of your coat and were calculated in their careful delicacy, as if starkly aware of whatever fragility permeated the scene. The being that rested between ultimate demise and his ability to influence otherwise.

That, that would ultimately be pointless.

His complexion paled in light to resemble with the snow. Each crevice and soft rounded curve of the stranger's countenance spoke of a cherub. Jubilant green and red spiraled across the rounded planes of his visage, hair black as the night that swallowed him. Small white flecks landed and kissed across the strands, contrasted amongst ebony. Much like stars engulfed in the wide expanse of space. If not so enthralled in your rage, you might have felt a rush of repose at the notion that he was the stark image of such cosmic and biblical figures.

A foggy memory resurfaced; faraway voices on the edge of spiritual ecstasy, kaleidoscope dreams illuminated by the dim orange glow of flame. A face etched in glass. It bore many similarities to the voided, suited man.

Could the sudden appearance be an interference of God?

No.

Fortunately, your redeemer bore no wings; head absent of any crowned halo.

You were never one with God, anyway.

And — you were still stewing in the sensation of polluted air that traveled through your lungs with each ragged inhale. Held in regard to the pulse that made a frantic presence in the juncture between your throat and clavicle. You could still feel your skin move across your bones in all of the wrong ways. Such a cruel thing it all was.

Whatever creature thrashed against the benign coercion silenced, legs stilled beneath your weight as you fell placid. Like night and day, defeat released itself in an oscillate wave. Your free arm lifted limply, up to wrap around the unwrinkled cufflink of the man. Your own fingers threaded across the fabric, tickled over dyed wool and cotton and seized. A suit? That hardly seemed appropriate for the current weather. Too flimsy, hardly tailored to fend off the frigid bite that hovered across the pedway. Odd.

"Let go of me."

Was spoken far more quietly. It mixed with the bustle of the evening, curdled under hot street lamps. The man's face shifted as the hostility broke from your tone, ebbed into a lower extreme of repugnant desolation. His thin lips fell into a frown that exuded an infuriating ounce of misplaced commiseration. Two green eyes searched yours, downcast and cocooned in an unconfined melancholy. They dawned in a ruptured perception of understanding which no individual you've just passed on the street should harbour.

The man's focus traversed the left, then the right. Stared and repeated the action for far longer than you deemed comfortable, before he settled upon both. The expression; appeared within throes of war for love, sculpted in apt search of justice — more. There were no words for it. His features sparked with heavy mars of distant recognition and.. some hint of adoration; irises overflowed with an intense concentration, utmost clarity. It frightened you.

"Forgive my forwardness, but I'm not sure I should."

You would argue your impenetrability in the eye of the unknown, the innate wherewithal in remaining unrecognizable — a stubbornness sewn to the center. But a bite had spread, pierced through each layer, and you were far too worn to fight anymore. Rendered amendable, something monopolized over the cloud of foreboding that suffocated you prior. It still lingered in the outliers, murmured in cruel frustration at being denied its dues; but it had become a dull pain, a bearable ache. Muffled. Ignorable, only by the hand that kept you tethered upon the surface.

Why? Who? —

"You have a place here, you know." The hushed utterance cleaved you in half. Left you suddenly clawing your way forward into the brink of a vulnerable presence you weren't quite prepared to face as your focus snapped upward. It wasn't phrased like a question; it was a statement of conviction. Spoken as if it were so very simple, so obvious. As if he whole-heartedly believed it.

And the separation the two of you had created from everything else, standing in middle of the sidewalk, it enraptured you. Nothing existed outside of the collision of your atmosphere with his.

"What?" You whispered back, hardly tangible and full of incredulity.

A strand of black fell across the stranger's heavy brow as his head tilted, considered. It felt out of place, uncharacteristic for him despite there being no shared rapport. There seemed to be a stench of togetherness on his clothes, imbued deeper down. An unfamiliarity, though you felt an unusual pull to situate what had fallen out of place. A smile, just the barest quirk at the corners of his mouth as it shaped over his lips. It made the dip of a cupid's bow even more prominent.

Ghosts scatter on the breath of an exhale, wistful and contemplative. The little phantoms dance out into the middle, shaped it into a ballroom of fog and reflective luminance, and beckoned toward you with small hither fingers. Come, come, come.. They sang hauntingly, Don't you want to see? There's so much here for you to learn.

You shove the feeling aside, squeeze your eyes shut to disperse the illusion, despite the nagging persistence.

You didn't know the man. He didn't know you.

Oblivious of your plight — or, so you lead yourself to believe for sanity's sake, he continued.

"All life is deserving.. and worthy of existing. Even though it may not yet be conscious of the fact." The man's voice bled carmine across the dark backdrop of your eyelids, low tone reverberated his personal version of scripture. Unaware would be the last word to describe the eclipsed stranger cascaded by merry jubilance. You're awe-struck; thrown awry in the throes of improbability, the breeze of sudden interrelation that stole away all motor function. Foolish and childlike from abundant exposure, whatever insatiable appetite lathered inside your stomach bubbled with acid.

The need could be written clear across your face, and the prospect instilled insurmountable shame.

You take a large step away, as though he had stricken you. Tall, broad shoulders mirror you, one foot toward, his whole body shifted to follow your backtrack. Now, he stood a monolithic pillar between the cusp of your previous descent into nothingness, and newly offered genesis. Your head shook side to side softly, not in denial, but shock. Despite the lack of ethereal limbs, the man radiated the aureole gleam of an archangel. This time, you do laugh. At the sheer absurdity of it all, the evident derailment of your thoughts. It's a small sound, pathetic and full of disbelief and wonder.

"Right, sure.." Unease oozed from each syllable, and avoidance became evident in the way your focus fluttered from his penetrative gaze, to the contact that bonded you.

Vehemence dulled, distinctly reigned into small pulses of energy that were far more gentle as your stranger hummed, aware — a sonorous harmony between remission and mirth.

"You'll have to forgive me again — " The raven-haired man's forehead furrowed immediately, cutting himself off as split vexation curved his lips downward. All at once, detachment clouded his green eyes, as though he were suddenly elsewhere. His free hand shot upward to trace across the lobe of his left ear, head quirking and given pause — listening? — as he fiddled with an object unseen. He casted a sharp glance over his shoulder in search for something, or someone, above the heads of people that you couldn't see.

When he turned to face you once more, his mouth had become a harsh, thin line. It was clear that whatever silent exchange transpired had extinguished any previous spell. All blithe spirits had fled. Concern marred each inch of his visage when he looked down at you. Although the previous frustration had slightly smoothed, apprehension creased and lined his face unpleasantly. Sensation stirred once more in the pit of your stomach, a need to reach out and flatten the unsuitable expression.

He did truly appear repentant.

Slowly, the stranger began to drag his fingers away, released his clasp with uncertainty, a lack of desire in parting. For a fraction of an inhale, his thumb brushed against the back of your knuckle before dropping entirely. You mourn his grounding warmth the second it is stripped from you. One step back, now one foot forward. Your mouth parted, all confusion and untamed inquisitiveness.

"Who —"

"Jay."

A name in place of absolution with quiet succession.

Jay invaded your senses, tugged like a human shield as he loomed closer, just for a moment. All fervent heat and imposing height. The scent of clove and lavender rushed you, brain synapses sent to fire and circuit like a spark of electric wire in water. It ushered you into a past time when you were safer, younger. Back splayed across mused sheets, turquoise mixed with false black, rough hands that brought your mouth to apologetic chapped lips. Spit that tasted of desperate regret and unfitted pride and begged you to escape.

The words die in your throat, tongue gone dry and saliva caught against your esophagus. You don't get a chance to move away before he had slipped something into the open pocket of your coat — somehow, skillfully avoiding making any direct contact. Mindful, respectful despite proximity.

"I'm sure we'll be seeing each other again. Please.." The honed intensity returned, blazed severity behind his eyes like an uncontrolled forest fire. Jay pulled away a mere length, head lowered to keep your line of sight leveled with his own. You can only stare back with bated breath. His hand flexed at your shoulder, nails digging into his palm, extended, as though he might.. Wanted, to touch —

Clarity sparked, or a new brew of irritation that formed between his eyebrows as a hand found his ear once more. Thought better of it. His arm dropped lifelessly against his side with a nearly imperceptible twitch of the tendons, and extended a much more restrained smile.

"Get home safely."

Before you could get another word out, the form of your unprecedented saviour had turned and melded into the bustle of the crowd. You are left alone to watch after an absence, frozen stiff to the ground. Whatever liquid heat in solace Jay had offered from his mild embrace, he had taken with him. The weather made itself known once more. Ensnared all viable and vulnerable entities, prickled like sharp needles across the supple expanse of your cheeks and nose.

The only confirmation that he hadn't been a figment of your imagination would be the small sliver of parchment paper that promised to burn a cavity through your defenses. The imprint of his fingers around your wrist which branded a symbol of edification across your flesh.