Hands and Heart

It was I who forced corruption past your throat.
        Yes, I, who loved you most—though you retched at the taste, I whispered gentle words to quiet you. Because only I could love you enough to kill you, to fill you with poison until the light dimmed behind your eyes. Now my alchemy percolates through your veins.
        "Gabriel, my angel. My angel, please don't!"
        You heave your anguish against the indistinguishable corridor walls, an unpleasant cacophony ricocheting down the passage at my back. No, no, I wanted to infect you and leave, leave you to choke on your noxious innards alone in the black that was my legacy.
        But life never follows exactly the route we map for it, does it?
        You came alive, passionately alive, reached for me, importunate and frantic. Still I sought to leave you behind, fleeing the room as the last of my poison dripped from that vile vial. You, a bird whose wings I had riven, struggled after me. Why? You must have known. Certainly you know now, as you blunder first into one wall and then its opposite, forging your way in the darkness.
        And your voice, your voice—it haunts me. How long ago was it that your voice enchanted me, your look pinioned me, bound me hands and heart? How long was it before I found those things hideous? Before reason insisted I envenom you as you had sickened me?
        "No, please don't! Please don't leave me behind, Gabriel!"
        There—your voice has ratcheted up, truly desperate now. No longer calling to catch my attention but calling to convince me away from Away.
        "I love you. I gave you everything… everything!"
        I find that I have stopped walking. Your footsteps, drunken, halt directly behind me. I imagine your vision spins by now. And before I can become master of my wrath, the corridor echoes with the hollow sound of my hand hitting your face. Like a dog you fall back, sickness and shame driving you against the wall. Shaking, shaking, clinging to yourself, your body now the only anchor in this endless sea. That warmth will not remain for long, love.
        "Go away," I hiss from the depths of my hatred—creeping hatred like a disease, like a poison, hatred that began in the most iniquitous bowels of my being. "You are nothing to me now."
        Just a wretched sob in reply. I leave you there, rocking, your life dwindling away.
        I open the door, knowing the touch of morning sunlight I admit as I leave will be the last you ever feel.
        The sun loathes me as I step outside. Blinking against it, I go to wash the filth from my hands.