The boy I talk to isn't there and that makes me sad.

Only, he isn't a boy, not really. And we don't talk… not really. I can tell everything that I haven't told him, and it's everything important. And nothing important. I can't tell you what we have talked about, day after day, night after endless night.

What he's told me… things that give me power. He doesn't realize he's done it, I'm certain. He's innocent in that way, which is odd, because he has corrupted me so completely.

He knows what he knows, and doesn't know what he doesn't know.

He knows about the knives and scars, but not what the knives and scars really mean. He knows about the ink and the pen but not what it can really do.

He doesn't know of the death and dreams.

I told him I have a limp he'll never see, but not how or why.

He told me how to kill him.

Less importantly, he told me how to love him and in that way destroy him.

Too easy.

I want to hate. I want sex and violence and the things he says that he apologizes for and not the sweetness or care.

That hurts too much.

There is no time to meet, his world is day and mine is night and the in-between is too dangerous for anyone now, even me. But there is the promise of such meetings and the anticipation the fluttery hope that neither of us will ruin.

His days are full and mine are empty and then I start making his days empty too, just because I can.

That's when you know I've won.

It takes him much longer to see that he's lost. It takes years of growing twilights and in betweens and quiet spaces that are usually left unseen.

I revel in my victory; gloat silently as his days become as barren as mine and the stretches between words becomes painful and arousing.

There was never a real reason to lie to him, and he never bothered to ask for the truth, but it was unspoken anyway, a lie of omission. The truth lay between us wrapped in a ribbon made of thorns, stained with the blood of degenerates.

He talks of the lingering night and the withering days, remarking as if this is not unusual in the slightest, and only worthy of passing interest; then moves on to poetry written with violence and greed.

I wonder if that is my doing, or his.

There is a lot of wondering, since I won; a lot of questions in that place between sleep and dream. There are answers there too, surfing on the tides, but the answer are not so intriguing as the questions themselves. I dissect those in the abbreviated days and poke at them with pointy objects until they screech.

It takes an age for those unspoken things to shrivel down to six words, three for each of us, two phrases that are both revered and reviled. Three words each that could destroy worlds. Words that can easily squirm free of the barbed ties that bind them and demand to be said.

I begin to seek him out, shadowing his steps to the places that hold power. In between the stacks of a library, peering through the books to catch a glimpse of a strong shoulder or dark curl of hair. Behind the edge of a road, invisible and forgotten between destinations, spying his wide hands on the wheel of a passing car.

He spotted me once at a crossroads at dawn, a sideways look as he exited and I entered, a dark look that blistered and froze; imbedded deep into the memory, outlasting the purpose of the crossing. Unspoken became blinding.

It was weakness that allowed for the meeting, a blurring of lines at the sea, where water meets land and sky, a trinity that opened a gate that should have stayed closed for millennia.

I never could resist an open door, so I stepped through, and he stepped through; and suddenly we occupied the same space, breathing the same salt tinged air.

He stood tall and proud before me, dressed in the black of the deepest night, exposed arms laced with scars and wrapped in indigo script in a language older than time itself; yet younger than we.

I could see myself in his eyes, light where he was dark, slender where he was broad; clad in the white of a bride stained with the crimson blush of innocence lost.

His wings were blackened with the decay of battles won; brittle and ridged with anguish.

Mine were the soft ivory down of birth and joy; warm as an embrace.

"Angel," I greeted with a sneer.

"Demon," he replied, a hint of a smile at his mouth.

He offers his hand, and I take it. His hands are gore stained and calloused; mine smooth and lily pure.

The ocean is cold as it rushes over my bare feet, dragging at the hem of my gown, swirling around his mud caked boots.

"Michael," I whisper, meeting his eyes, pale and silvery in a finely chiseled face. I imagine my own wine red eyes are as alien and familiar to him as his are to me.

His name on my lips is ripe and sweet, and brings the promise of his smile to fruition.

"Lilith." His voice is cool and dark.

He is ancient and ageless, the boy in front of me, his face youthful and unlined, a mirror for my own.

A pregnant pause, charged with the weight of a thousand murmured conversations.

I could kill him where he stands, he made sure I knew how, gave me the power to end his eternal existence.

His sword could end mine, swift and sure.

"I hate you." He tells me, softly, tenderly.

"I love you." I respond; the unspoken finally unleashed in the most unremarkable way. My words hiss and bubble with vitriol.