CW: Bodily Injury

Thank you for being here, you say. The familial stranger sits at your table, hundreds of miles away. Of course, says he, crinkling eyes that whisper aside: This burden is too hard to bear alone. Let me lift you.

And so you let him. Lift you. The veins start to clot, the bruises yellow, the mucus dries. But as he weaves your cracking ribs into something whole, the binding string frays apart. Finger and thumb spinning the thread, splitting the sea from the sky.

What happened, you say. Hammer in hand, the familial stranger leans down beside you. I am too weak, says he, as he strikes down on marrow. It cannot be helped. So splinter you must, and hammer he does, and on and on until you are teeth in the earth.