reading the locked tomb is like: what if i had never had any choice but to hurt you? what if you never had any choice but to be hurt by me? if we were pieces set up by forces beyond our control to hurt and be hurt by one another. could we ever forgive each other that? what if the only way to save you was by hurting me? what if i loved you so i begged you to hurt me? what if you loved me, so you refused, and it was the worst thing you’d ever done to me? (what if i didn’t let you refuse, and you had to live with it?) or how about if we had both been hurt badly enough that we didn’t remember how to love at all? if we hurt each other for a myriad instead, would that be close enough?
or, what if you were made of love? what if all you knew how to do was love, so much that you were bad at anything else, so much that everything you loved belonged to you by virtue of your loving it? what if that love could be taken away? what would you do to keep it? would you hurt yourself? would you hurt them? would you kill them if it meant you would never become someone who didn’t love them? or, what about if you loved me so much that you gave me the power to save you, but it turned me into a monster? what if i used that power to hurt you, and it turned you into a monster? would you still love me enough to let me hurt you again? if you survived and found me lifetimes later, and killed me then, would it be because you hated me or because you loved me? would it matter?
and what if we actually did it? both of us managing to refuse to hurt each other. what if we turned the whole system inside out, and it killed us both anyways? what if the only way to escape would destroy us both, or alter us unrecognizably? would it be worth it if it meant we wouldn’t have to hurt one another any longer? and then i finish the book and i have to just put it down and get on with my day like all that didn’t peel and juice me like an orange
