the blade of betrayal
I taste it—sharp, metallic, like blood before the first cut, coating my tongue with the memory of promises now hollow and spent.
I feel it before I see it—
cold, lurking too close,
moving in the silence,
waiting with patient stillness
beneath the surface of every conversation,
every glance that lingers too long.
It creeps into me,
an icy current winding through my veins,
curling tight around my bones,
pressing against my chest until it’s hard to breathe.
The air thickens,
damp with the scent of iron,
a bitterness that clings to my throat,
as if the words I was meant to speak
have corroded to nothing.
I taste it—sharp, metallic,
like blood before the first cut,
coating my tongue with the memory of promises
now hollow and spent.
The taste lingers,
like a cold wind gnawing at my skin,
a bitter reminder of the words I wish I hadn’t said,
or the ones I never found the courage to speak.
And then it strikes—
not fast, but slow, deliberate,
as though savoring the parting of flesh,
the tightening of my breath,
the way my body tenses beneath its bite.
It’s a twisting agony,
burrowing deep into fragile spaces,
into places too delicate to name.
I hear it too—
a wet, muffled sound,
flesh tearing like paper,
the soft surrender of skin under
the sharp kiss of steel.
My world narrows,
shrinking to the pounding in my ears,
each beat a cruel reminder of the blood spilling,
slipping down the blade in a thick, warm stream.
I wish for stillness,
but it doesn’t come.
Just the slow, steady rhythm of my undoing.
And the blood—it keeps flowing.
Not fast, but slow—a steady
drip,
drip,
drip,
thick and dark as it pools at my feet.
The wound isn’t clean.
It never is.
It festers,
edges jagged and raw,
skin curling back as though recoiling
from the truth of what’s been done.
It doesn’t heal.
It can’t.
It deepens,
growing wider,
its edges blackened with rot,
infected by lies,
by trust that was never real.
I try to ignore it,
to dismiss it as a scratch,
a fleeting pain that will fade.
But it doesn’t.
It lingers,
a constant pressure beneath my skin,
pulsing with every heartbeat,
reminding me of its presence
even when I pretend to forget.
I carry it like a scar no one else can see,
but I feel it—always.
The slow twist,
the aching reminder
that nothing is whole again.
The mirror shows
what I don’t want to see:
a face pale and drawn,
eyes hollowed by the weight of knowing.
The reflection whispers the truth—
I am fractured,
broken in places
I didn’t know could break.
There are cracks running through me,
hairline fractures
spreading like a spider’s web.
No matter how hard I try to hold the pieces,
they don’t fit anymore.
The reflection stares back,
a stranger where I once was whole.
The blade took that away too.
And the blood—it keeps flowing.
Not fast, but slow—a steady
drip,
drip,
drip,
thick and dark as it pools at my feet.
It smells of iron, of rust,
of time slipping away,
and I wonder how much more I can bleed
before there’s nothing left at all.
The wound remains open.
Festering beneath the surface,
a constant ache I can’t escape.
I feel it in my bones,
in places that should be warm
but are now hollow,
cold with the weight of something unnamed.
The blade never leaves.
It twists inside me,
subtle,
almost gentle,
as though it knows just how much pain I can bear—
then asks for more.
It’s a quiet torture,
one that doesn’t scream but hums,
low and constant,
until I can’t tell where the blade ends
and I begin.
In the silence that follows,
there’s only the slow grind of iron against bone,
the slipping away of what I once knew,
of trust I once gave freely.
Now, it’s just blood and shadows,
the fading echo of something lost,
something that can never be reclaimed.
The blade has a name,
but it isn’t spoken.
I feel it in the way I flinch at every touch,
in the way my breath catches at the faintest lie.
It’s carved into me so deep,
even I don’t know how far it goes.
In the end,
I am left with only the blade,
its cold edge buried deep,
twisting slowly.
And the blood—it keeps flowing.
Not fast, but slow—a steady
drip,
drip,
drip,
thick and dark as it pools at my feet.
The shadows stretch longer,
darker,
until the person I was
becomes a distant memory,
a ghost in the mirror,
hollow-eyed and unfamiliar.
—the blade of betrayal.
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