Despair

Warning: I believe it might be slightly shocking. Was not in a happy place when I wrote this so read at your own discretion.

“There’s definitely beauty,” he said, scrutinizing its every detail, “I’ll give you that.” His long black hair drooped backwards and parted, as he lifted his head to see the top part, as if it were a cascade of shadow. The action revealed his face. Utter perfection. A form of beauty that combined both male and female. He could be either. It was absolutely disgusting. I almost couldn’t bear my sudden urge to wretch. Wretch and cover him from head to toe in the very liquid that my stomach would refute. That’s what he was. A refute.

“What will you call it?” he asked me, his genuine smile almost giving me diarrhoea.

“Despair.” I replied. I knew he wouldn’t like it. Part of me enjoyed that.

“It’s a bit cliché isn’t it? You can do better.” There it was. That condescending glint in his eye. The one that would make me want to kill him.

I didn’t reply. I knew I could do better. He didn’t have to tell me that. I just said it so he would realise that it was him in the painting. Him, hanging himself. I drew his utterly disgusting perfection, and painted with black so dark it would consume his image. He’d be unrecognisable in death because he didn’t deserve an identity in life. And it’d be pitiless, his death. There was no room for remorse. It was the right thing to do, killing himself. The universe wanted it: it cascaded into the painting showing that everything is right. He hung himself as was meant to be. Everybody would rejoice.

Actually, on the other hand, it’d be better if they wouldn’t! That would mean that they recognised his existence! He didn’t deserve that recognition! He didn’t deserve anything! He had to die alone and be forgotten instantly. It had to be as if he was dead all along. It had to be as if he had never been born.

That’s when I stopped breathing and could no longer see my reflection in the mirror.