█▐ ❆ ࿐ᐤ  IT WOULD JUST be better if he never knew it at all. Of warmth &&. security. Of gentleness &&. fortress arms. Of the promises of the open sky– 

                Of the love only mothers can afford.

    IT WOULD BE BETTER if he never felt it at all. So he doesn’t seek it. Doesn’t crave it. And doesn’t cry when Ur looked past the storm in his eyes.

                        His chest aches. 

    For he is but a broken boy that lingered in a jarring purgatory of simultaneous disillusionment &&. spite — for his SHATTERING pieces are barely held together by his own bruised little hands. The rot of the world hadn’t so much as acknowledged him ; it ravaged the crumbling remains of his HOPE, gnawed into the scowl lines that permanently etched across his face.

                        His eyes burn.

    A novel entity in this BROKEN little world, singularly unaffected by TIME &&. Gray’s tiny frame brimmed with the weight of enervation. A voice in the nether of his mind ( sounding vaguely evocative of reason ) cautioned him to heed the phrase ❛ too good to be true. ❜

                    … There is only LOVE now.*

    The surge of the abrupt remission had TAUNTED him, causing his boyish legs to convulse involuntarily &&. the fateful plummet to transpire. His knobby knees adhered to the snow, and yet there he remains; encompassed within the warmth of his master’s EMBRACE– small digits clutching at the fabric of Ur’s jacket as if she was…. a fleeting dream.

                         It’s warm.

    In the safety of her embrace is where his tiny survivalist persona could finally recede. This is where his fight could finally END, even if it was just temporary. He pressed his damp face closer closer closer ; the incessant internal flame inside of him effectively SMOTHERED. She smelled of persimmons &&. spice, and his sputtering heart trembled as his eyes burned with unshed sorrows.

⠀

            Please don’t let go of me… 

  _{Please don’t let go–—}