“That’s it. Offer her to me.” She says, sneering. I don’t hold back, I open my chest more, allowing her to dig deeper to get a better grip onto the pesky part of me, the weaker part, removing her.
I breathe in once more, “Please? Rid me of her.” The pain too deep for me to bear, too hard to endure alone with. “Take the better part of me.” I wince. Each limb falls out of me, slowly—arms, core, head flopping with death, and last, legs. I grunt, looking down at myself as she places my soul into the coffin. Black hair meshed behind the head, hands crossed over the chest, eyes closed.
The woman lifts her hands, pulling darkness from around us—pulling it from those creatures around us, endowing it on to me. I embrace it all, carelessly and needy. My hollow body crying out to be filled with something—what better way to fill it than with the darkness? With eyes closed, I intake it all, letting it consume me.
“Please fill me.” I beg for those dark powers for my soul. My white dress blackens and stretches, hair tucks itself away under the circular, black hat, nails blackening, lips greying and finally opening my eyes which are now black and piercing into the better part lying in the coffin. I smirk, “It’s only the beginning.”
Maybe pain doesn’t come from the heart. Maybe it’s buried in the soul. Maybe it’s a psychic jolt that releases from you when they’re gone—leaving you soulless.
The Better Part of MeChristy Johnson
They have always said that death comes in threes,
But when God took him, he took the rest of me.
And if I had the chance to love him again, I swear I’d do it right,
But now it’s too late to feel him, to love him, to hold him tight.
There was a part of me that just couldn’t let him go,
And that part of me loved him, and that, he’ll never know.
He’s the first man I’ve loved, he’s the first to make me cry,
He was my distraction and with him, my heart dies.
I’ve asked a million and one times what am I going to do,
And he said I’d make it and he’d be there to see me through.
I will always love this man more than I will ever love myself,
But what’s even harder about loving him is loving him to death.
He mellowed out the hurt and with him, I forgot the pain,
And in his brown eyes, I’d seek sunshine to clear out this rain.
I know they’ll always say that when death comes, it’ll come in threes,
But when death made this mistake, it mistakenly took the better part of me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christy Johnson, a graduate of Winston Salem State University, lives in a small city in North Carolina with her soon-to-be husband, Gerald Hargrove. Her interests have always been writing poetry and short stories. She is grateful to be able to expand her interests into her first series – Breathe.
“Sometimes it’s better to fly alone than in a flock and go unnoticed.” –C.J.
Breathless (The Breathe Series Book 1) Page 21
