How to Save a Life

A life is a spark is a light, the flame flickering in the wind and dancing as your breath whispers across the wick, fragile and beautiful and oh-so-ephemeral. Life is not forever; it ends, gets cut short, the tape ejected from the VHS player as the newer generations of DVDs and Blu-rays spin on in their compact players, the movie of their lives lasting longer than yours ever could have thanks to modern technology, modern medicine increasing the storage space in the newer models. You can’t help that you were born in a time long gone, can’t help that you’re obsolete compared to the newest foot soldiers in life’s great army. No one chooses when to be born, we get what we get, and we are new and shiny and exciting until the next round of children are created, their needs more immediate than our own. You’ll start to waste away, dying slowly and painfully of neglect that no one realizes they’re committing, leaving you to care for yourself even if you aren’t ready. But I might have the cure, might have a way to save you, if you’re willing to let me try.
I can straighten you up, lace my fingers through the notches in your spine like ribbon through a corset, pulling tight and re-aligning the bones so that you stand tall and proud again, infuse steel into the marrow to keep you that way. I can press kisses to the back of your neck to stimulate the synapses of your brain, my lips just over your brainstem and brushing the skin lightly. I can ghost my hand up your side, the feathering touches shocking the nerves into action, forcing your heart to beat again, faster and stronger than before, your senses heightening and sharpening to the point where you can’t see the big picture, and only notice the individual ways I’m fixing you. Your bones becoming stronger, your body working faster, my name crawling up your throat and falling from your lips, the sound fortifying these new improvements. My name seals the contract, and I murmur yours in return, the soft volume a contrast to your loud cry. I’ve brought you back to life, made your dead skin bright with the flushed colour of blood flowing to the surface where it previously sat idle in your veins and arteries. My hands make miracles, make you feel again, make everything the way it should be, make the world fall into place and make the sadness disappear, if only for a little while. I am your savior, the only one who can lazarus you when death comes knocking again to steal you from me. I am possessive, violent, and jealous; I will not let him have you. You are only mine, and I will repair you every time he tries to ruin you. He will never have your body heart soul mind because they are mine. See? I carved my name on each one, the letters deep and scarring, completely irreversible. No. Death’s skeletal hand will never caress your hair or scrape the skin of your cheek. Those pleasures are only for me, only for the one you love and belong to, the one who knows how to keep you on the edge, the one who knows how to save your life when the line gets a little too blurred.

-Paige, alumni