~

Once upon a time,

a street rat became a Queen.
~
I won't let you fall apart
I won't let you fall apart
I won't let you fall apart
I won't let you fall apart
I won't let you fall apart
I won't let you fall apart
I won't let you fall apart
I won't let you fall apart

('it doesn't get any better than this', she thought with a bloody smile.
broken knuckles,
and an inability to know any fucking better.)
 1.

The first time I saw him he was blocking my way.

I'd been in a fight, I was bruised and battered, and my face felt like one big bloody pulp, and he was
standing in my fucking way, grinning like like the retard he was, in the pouring rain.

"Hey," he said, staring at me in amusement, as if my misery was the funniest thing in the world to
him. "I'm a dog."

"... Okay." Well, how the hell was I supposed to respond to that?

"Hey! Is that it? 'Okay'? You're supposed to argue about it!" he said with a huff, crossing his arms
over his chest. "Besides, I wasn't done anyway, so you'd have been better off just shutting up instead
of making an idiot of yourself."

But then he was silent, and looking at me expectingly, as if he wanted me to say something.

Again, what the hell? He asks me to be silent but then he expects me to say something?

"... Okay."

But I guess this time it was the right thing to say, because he grinned in amusmement, and repeated;

"I, am a lowly dog."

Then he bowed down, folding one arm behind his back, making a deep sweeping motion with his
other, as if I were some royalty.

"And you, you are the beautiful moon."

The next thing I knew he was gone, and I was left clutching a clean, white handkerchief.

2.

"What's your name?" I remember asking.

It was dark. Most of the streetlights surrounding this playground were broken, had been for as long
as I cared to remember. Summer left the air thick and humid. Every breath was a forced gulp,
leaving an aftertaste of the nearby ocean, disgustingly flavored by the docks kept open thanks to
human trafficking, seasoned with blood carefully provided by the cuts in my mouth.

The only sound was the claustrophobic rustling of chains as I forced the small swing into motion,
back and forth, back and forth..

"My name, hm...?"

He gripped the monkey bars of the jungle gym tightly before doing a wild swing, then dropping
down on the ground.
"You can call me, King of Hearts."

I had to snort.

The Idiot, as I had taken to calling the nameless boy in my mind, actually struck a pose. As if what
he had said was either funny or heroic enough to ward a pose.

He just shrugged.

"Names are names are names, oh grumpy one!" Then he was on the jungle gym again, doing several
tricks that were probably impressive. Something I wouldn't have admitted to thinking even held at
gunpoint. "Let's hear your name then."

My name, huh?.. Well if he didn't give me his real one, then there was no way I would give him
mine, so I gave a reluctant shrug in response.

"Let me give you a hint," he said, as if it was completely normal for him to hint at strangers what
their names should be.

"It's only slightly below mine in rank," He said with a wink in my direction before forcing his body
to stand vertically upwards, making it look easy to defy gravity.

Jack, was the first word that came to my mind. Jack of all trades, master of none.

Only when the boy next to me had ceased motion for too long, staring at me while suspended
upside down, did I realize that I had spoken out loud.

His staring was making me fidget. Coarse sand seeped into my sneakers as I dug my toes in deep.
The chains of the swing dug into my palms as I clenched tight.

"No," he said slowly after a while, breaking the silence as he resumed motion. "It's a good name,
though. It's too long."

"Just Jack would do fine."

"But you aren't a boy."

"And you aren't a king."

"But the intention of the name doesn't suit you."

"What's the intention of King of Hearts?"

"But I already picked out a name for you!"

"..."

"Don't you wanna know what it is?"

"Do I want to know what my own name is? Do you realize how bizarre this conversation is?"
He seemed to be ignoring me as he hopped off the jungle gym, standing in front of me.

"You, aaaaare..."

"What are you waiting for, a drumroll?"

"The Queen of Hearts."

"...Less."

"What?"

"Queen of Heartless. If anything. My name, right? I should get to choose it. King and Queen of
Hearts sounds like we're married or something. Besides, Heartless suits me better."

"Just because you wish it were, doesn't make it so," He said in a sing-song voice, flopping down
onto his back on the cold, hard sand. He looked the very picture of defeat.

"You win, my queen."

3.

"Sometimes, I think you're the earth."

"...huh?"

"I SAID, SOMETIMES, I THINK--"

"I heard what you said, idiot, quiet down. I just don't know what you mean, you damn weirdo."

"Hey, objection. I'm not a weirdo."

"Objection overruled. Now tell me, my dear weirdo, what do you mean you think I'm the earth?"

"Weeeeeeell. You're dirty."

"Thanks."

"You let people walk all over you."

"Thank you."

"And you let people hurt you."

"Again, thanks."

"Sometimes you're as cold as a freaking ice berg!"

"Gee, you're not laying off on the compliments today, are you?"
"Sometimes you're as devastating as a natural disaster."

"Is there a point to your cliché verbal diarrhea?"

"But you, you're like a mountain, solid and strong. You're as peaceful as a rainforest after the first
rain of the season. You try to be as blank as the desert when there's an entire ocean under the
surface. And you, my dear, are like the earth. Constant, unwavering, and everything."

.. He is such an idiot. Spewing nonsense like bad poetry with his shit-eating grin in place. He knows
how big an idiot he is. He knows it and I refuse to be as big a retarded bullshit poet as him, so
therefore, I turn away, and I don't say that if I really were the earth, I'd make all the flowers in the
world bloom just for him.

4.

("Where are you from?"

You didn't answer.

"You don't look like you're from around here."

Silence again.

"You don't even act like you're from around here."

Nothing again, but you sent me an amused grin.

"I don't know you at all."

I knew how childish and bitter I sounded. I knew it and I still said it.

I only know a small part of you. The crazy you, the happy you, the smiling you.

And it's not even a small part. Rather, a fraction of a small part.

But that one, tiny fragment that you have shown me, is all that I have, and I have to make do with
that.

I can't leave you alone.

I can't be alone, either, because my biggest fear is that you will change.

Even though all I have is me, and a fragment of you. And that's all I'll ever have.)

5.
"How did you find me?"

It rang weak even in my own ears. Slow and slurred. I tried to glare up at him, but it was hard with
my swelling eye. I must have looked pathetic, too. Crumbled against the wall of some dirty alley.

He laughed.

"Why, my dear Queen, I followed the trail of crumbs."

My eyes followed his hand as he pointed towards something. My blurred vision managed to make
out a trail of blood.

"You knoooow-" He crouched down, bringing himself to eye level. "When people start beating the
living daylights out of you, you're supposed to fight back." he said with a grin, as if he was laughing
at me, but gentle fingers -

(So gentle, so careful, so soft, and I'm not used to it at all so I flinch before I can stop myself, and I
regret it, I have to, when I see the shadows in your eyes deepen as your hand leaves my cheek-)

- touch my bruised face in contrast.

As he cleans me up, I'm silent, but he's humming, and he looks as happy as always.

"You shouldn't let them get away with this, yanno."

I don't have the energy to tell him to just fuck off.

He says,

"You're too kind."

and I have to wonder if he was actually, really, honestly insulting me this time, because he's weird,
but I'm kind, and we both know that kind people tend to disappear sooner rather than later.

6.

(I'm sorry. I leave this shit up to the King of Hearts for a reason.

I don't speak in clichés. There's nothing special about his laughter. It doesn't sound like gentle
chiming of bells, nor like a sigh of wind in the summer.

But it is somehow, just... right.)

7.
"You know, since people talk so much, words have lost their meaning."

His words caught me so off guard that I halted in the middle of trying to sit down, frozen in some
awkward squat above the bench. Being the asshole that he was he just snickered at me.

"What?" he said. "They have."

"I'm not questioning that they have," I muttered. "I'm merely astounded by the fact that you, known
to be a loudmouth, would tell me, the most quiet person in town, that people should use words more
sparsely."

He plastered his thousand watt, shit-eating grin firmly in place and sent me a wink. To which I
rolled my eyes.

"Well, think about it. Take 'hate' for example. people throw the word around like it's nothing, right?"

When it was clear that I wouldn't reply it was his turn to roll his eyes, but he didn't pester me for it.

"Yeah, they do. And it's the same with love, right? People say they love anything and everything.
But at the same time it's different. Imagine confessing to the person you love for the first time, or
even the first few times. I think that's normally when it means the most, right? But it's hard. It's
weird, and it's awkward, and you can't do it. So maybe, it's when you don't say it that it matters the
most."

"... What are you trying to say?"

This was the first and only time he hadn't been able to look at me. His eyes were adverted, staring at
some point beyond the horizon, off in some place where I couldn't follow.

"Wrong question." Shift. Stare at a point above my shoulder. Take a deep breath."... Ask me what
I'm not saying, and I'll not say it."

8.

(My strength lies in counting, do you want to see?

I can count the seconds until I suffocate. I can count punches until I lose consciousness. I can count
kicks until every bone in my body is broken and I'm dead.

I can count minutes, days, weeks and years.

I can count steps, count lives, count friends.

I can't count seconds, scars, or every time cerulean eyes meet mine without going insane.

But what I'm really proud of:

I can count on you.)

 9.

The next day, The King of Hearts disappeared.

I waited for days. Weeks. Months, even. But it was pretty clear that he wasn't coming back, you
know?

I think, maybe, that he joined the passing circus. Disappeared the very same day they packed up and
left, even. Living with all the freaks of the circus... It seems appropriate somehow.

Or maybe he was an escapee from the docks, brought here against his will from distant lands, and
one of those selected few who managed to slink away.

Maybe they tracked him down again.

(I secretly hope not. But that's what makes it all the more likely.)

Maybe I even made him up.

Which doesn't even make any fucking sense.

Or it does, I guess. Whatever. Does it really matter?

But if the King of Hearts was really something I made up, then I would be proud to take credit and
say he's something my mind created, to say he's mine.

Because that's the only way he ever could be, you know?

(I wish I made him up, but I know that's fallacy. Because every day, I carry around a dirty white
handkerchief, stained rusty red with old blood.)

10.
You once asked me what my mother was.

You rejected my explanation that she was a prostitute and a junkie, and instead, excitedly, asked me
if she was a will-o'-the-wisp, because my light shone elusive.

I remember staring at you as if you were an idiot. I thanked you.

"What?" you asked me, confused.

"My mother; swamp-creature that lures passer-byes to their doom. What part is it you don't
understand?"

And in a rare moment of somber seriousness, you answered;

"The part where it changes you."

And you were right; my mother was a whore, could have been a sphinx, could have been a siren,
could have been a huldra, and I would still be there, loving you.

Do you want to know what did change me?

I don't fight anymore, and I don't care, and I don't clean my cuts or wipe off blood, because those
were your jobs, and it's just wrong to take over what you left behind.

I changed because you left, and you took my light, and there's honestly, truly, nothing I can do to
get it back.

I could be a sphinx, siren, huldra, monster, demon, ghost, manticore.

I'm a will-o'-the-wisp without a light.

And you, you're just gone.

11.

It was a rainy day, much like the day I'd first met the King of Hearts.

I was bleeding and pissed off, much like the day I'd first met the King of Hearts.

Blood leaked sluggishly from my forehead, obscuring my vision. I would have raised my hands to
rub it out of my eyes, but I couldn't raise my arms.

So tired.

I blinked a few times-

(and each time, my eyes remained closed for just a bit longer-)

- but it did nothing to ease the blackness eating away at the edges of my vision.

Oh.

Unlike the day I'd first met the King of Hearts, I couldn't stand up. Which was becoming really
annoying really fast, because I knew I needed to move.

My mind couldn't even bring itself to panic.

I'd kick the ass of King of Hearts the next time I saw him, for not being here this time.

Well.. there definitely wouldn't be a next time this time around, would there?

Right..
I looked down. The gaping wound in my stomach was ugly and a huge bloody mess, but it barely
hurt any longer, my mind slowly realized.

Thank god.

12.

Your name is Queen of Heartless.

You had a different name once, but you forgot.
You love the King of Hearts.
Your vision is almost gone, so you have to strain your ears to hear--

-
-
-

(Without you I'm nothing)

One day he came and picked me up;
Me, the rat from the gutter.

(We're all lying in the gutter,

but some of us are looking at the stars.)