joshua 'and i said no' rosfield (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rosarianrebirth) wrote2024-01-19 04:11 pm
rosarianrebirth) wrote2024-01-19 04:11 pm
Entry tags:
smiles
I never asked for your smiles. Your rare, precious smiles. The smug ones, the sweet ones, the pained ones. The helpless ones. The embarrassed ones.
I never asked for you to look at me and see me. I was already gone, after all. A ghost, or just about, soon to return to the forgotten. I needed your support, the realm needed your support, and I thought I could offer in return salvation to your people, our people, all people, even if the road to that salvation would be long and dark and perilous. I was never to be a part of it. I can never be a part of it
What I felt could not matter. I had nothing to offer as myself. I never have had anything, and now not even a future. Only as the phoenix can I be useful.
But then. Then I walked into your space, your rage palpable in the air, and instead of aught else, you Saw me. You looked, and I was suddenly not a wanderer, drifting through the world. I was someone who was remembered. Someone picked out of the crowd, with beautiful gold-hued eyes that would have made me forget myself had not what I needed to say been so, so important.
I didn't ask for your focus as myself.
I did not have the right to ask for it. Not with your life, with all the love in those blessed eyes for the one who had stayed by your side all your life.
But he did not have your smiles.
Those, you gifted to me, and I was powerless to resist them. Powerless to resist the thrill of making one person happier than he had been. Powerless to resist the slivers of affection I could not reject, not after so many years of trying to erase myself from my own existence.
Joshua Rosfield did not matter, after all. The Phoenix did, the Dominant of the Phoenix did, but not me. Not the boy who lost half a decade of his life altogether, and then nearly as much helpless, useless, only alive by the grace of his eikon and the people dedicated to it.
Joshua Rosfield did not matter, until you looked at me as though I did.
And now here I am, with your pain and your promise, your anguish and your affection, your sweetness and your smiles. And I wish...
I wish it could be different.
I wish you had a desire, a hope, to live, and I the ability to do so. I wish I could bring you back to your man, and, perhaps, become friends with him. I wish I could gift him with smiles, too, your smiles and his own, brightness in these blighted times. I wish I could know what your affections mean, can mean, will mean, when time has mended some of the pain, and you once again know why and how and how well your people need you, why and how and how well you serve them, and make their lives better. Blessed.
I wish I could take away the tears near overwhelming you whenever you are not smiling at me, and sometimes when you are. I wish I could give you, and him, the heavens as they ever should have been, not cursed by a creator who labors to crush all that we are and that we cherish and that we could become.
I wish I would have the chance to love you. Both of you. In whatever way you choose to have me. I wish you had the time to choose in what way you would have me.
I wish I could deserve your smiles, those gifts of light that are not your eikon, but yourself, brilliant and bright and beautiful.
But I have no future, and you do not wish for one. And I can never pay you back for all that you have given me.
If my life were mine to give, if I had a life left to give, I would have dedicated it to aiding you in returning hope to these lands. Not the hope of the Phoenix, of Bahamut, of powers that can devastate as well as mend. But the hope of people you can trust your life to. The hope of having a leader who cares, and who knows how to make true the hopes of safety, of prosperity, of happiness that glow like embers even in the deepest darkness of despair. The hopes of learning from the past, but building a present, a future, a life that is worth living for. A life where you would not be struggling to find a reason to greet the morrow, but look to it with eagerness, for the morrow brings safety and love and comfort.
I did not wish for your smiles, my dearest. But if I had, these are the things I would have tried to offer in return for them.
I never asked for you to look at me and see me. I was already gone, after all. A ghost, or just about, soon to return to the forgotten. I needed your support, the realm needed your support, and I thought I could offer in return salvation to your people, our people, all people, even if the road to that salvation would be long and dark and perilous. I was never to be a part of it. I can never be a part of it
What I felt could not matter. I had nothing to offer as myself. I never have had anything, and now not even a future. Only as the phoenix can I be useful.
But then. Then I walked into your space, your rage palpable in the air, and instead of aught else, you Saw me. You looked, and I was suddenly not a wanderer, drifting through the world. I was someone who was remembered. Someone picked out of the crowd, with beautiful gold-hued eyes that would have made me forget myself had not what I needed to say been so, so important.
I didn't ask for your focus as myself.
I did not have the right to ask for it. Not with your life, with all the love in those blessed eyes for the one who had stayed by your side all your life.
But he did not have your smiles.
Those, you gifted to me, and I was powerless to resist them. Powerless to resist the thrill of making one person happier than he had been. Powerless to resist the slivers of affection I could not reject, not after so many years of trying to erase myself from my own existence.
Joshua Rosfield did not matter, after all. The Phoenix did, the Dominant of the Phoenix did, but not me. Not the boy who lost half a decade of his life altogether, and then nearly as much helpless, useless, only alive by the grace of his eikon and the people dedicated to it.
Joshua Rosfield did not matter, until you looked at me as though I did.
And now here I am, with your pain and your promise, your anguish and your affection, your sweetness and your smiles. And I wish...
I wish it could be different.
I wish you had a desire, a hope, to live, and I the ability to do so. I wish I could bring you back to your man, and, perhaps, become friends with him. I wish I could gift him with smiles, too, your smiles and his own, brightness in these blighted times. I wish I could know what your affections mean, can mean, will mean, when time has mended some of the pain, and you once again know why and how and how well your people need you, why and how and how well you serve them, and make their lives better. Blessed.
I wish I could take away the tears near overwhelming you whenever you are not smiling at me, and sometimes when you are. I wish I could give you, and him, the heavens as they ever should have been, not cursed by a creator who labors to crush all that we are and that we cherish and that we could become.
I wish I would have the chance to love you. Both of you. In whatever way you choose to have me. I wish you had the time to choose in what way you would have me.
I wish I could deserve your smiles, those gifts of light that are not your eikon, but yourself, brilliant and bright and beautiful.
But I have no future, and you do not wish for one. And I can never pay you back for all that you have given me.
If my life were mine to give, if I had a life left to give, I would have dedicated it to aiding you in returning hope to these lands. Not the hope of the Phoenix, of Bahamut, of powers that can devastate as well as mend. But the hope of people you can trust your life to. The hope of having a leader who cares, and who knows how to make true the hopes of safety, of prosperity, of happiness that glow like embers even in the deepest darkness of despair. The hopes of learning from the past, but building a present, a future, a life that is worth living for. A life where you would not be struggling to find a reason to greet the morrow, but look to it with eagerness, for the morrow brings safety and love and comfort.
I did not wish for your smiles, my dearest. But if I had, these are the things I would have tried to offer in return for them.