Throes

I don’t know what it is, but it’s black, and it’s filling him up. And if I could I would pull it from his body. If I could I would eat it as my last meal. And I fly to him just to try. I hold his hand and hope that my pressure and my voice can drown the darkness. I hope I can pull the damned thing from him and swallow it myself. Snuff me out but please don’t take him. I supplicate as though I could coerce my light to fill him and banish what has taken him over. His words come as lilting breaths. Something just short of a whisper, yet still carrying his cadence. And he wants to leave. But I cannot let him. And I hold onto him, though he assures me I must let go. I must let go, though I crave to carry his contagion. His contagion, my very own albatross. And as the shadows overwhelm him, ragged and shallow breaths struggle to sustain him. But it is only a murky twilight leading into the complete void of midnight. And I don’t know the last time my eyes were dry, but I know it was dark just before. I know I held his hand, and the blackened disease circled our wrists. And that darkness never left him. It consumed me, but it somehow never left him. And I don’t know how, but it took him instead of me. And here I am. And everything is black.