Harry felt like a quilt. Made of mismatched pieces of fabric sewn together carelessly. His heart different than his lungs, his lungs different than his mind. The stitches sewn haphazardly, black and blue and every color thread. No real beginning, no real ending.
His body was pulled too tight, yet the stitches still came undone. Unraveling instead of unyielding, an unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected side effect of his unspooling thread. His mother had sewn the scars in, hoping to protect him. His father layered the quilt in blood, hoping to save him.
He was christened in a bed of blood however, held up for the world to see, his scar the crucifix on which he hung, unflinchingly. He was not the Father, he was not the Son. He was their challenges and triumphs. Their humanity. And isn’t that why he was born? To fulfill a purpose.
It didn’t matter if his stitches came loose, if his fabric peeled off in clumps, if the thread pulled to tight. His breath didn’t matter. The world kept changing. It moved on. He was a star in the sky, an inky blot too raw for their comfort. His edges, jagged, his words, harsh.
His fabric was torn beyond repair, the blood of his father, seeping farther down. The pulling of his thread would not stop. He was the Father, he was the Son. He was everything, and nothing at all. A star, a sky, a boy. He had too much truth, too much tragedy, sewn into his very being, his very core, to try and stitch himself back together.
His scars a slash on his soul, a stitch gone awry. The thread coiling up, trying to contain the blood, the monster, that was embedded in his ribs. The monster was made of fire. Flickering, towering flames, heat like the sun. No form, no feeling, just an indescribable thing that resided within him. It was a smudge, a stain on the world. His rage fueled his monster, his monster fueled his desire, his desire fueled his rage. An endless, relentless cycle that left no room for error, no room for those things that hindered him.
Harry the savior, would not rest until he was dead. He was not important. He should not breathe. His body was a vessel, his soul pushed aside. He was made to fulfill a purpose, not to be human. He existed, and that was enough (it was not). His quilt was just a fraction of a bigger one, and it doesn’t matter how damaged one part of a whole is, as long as the majority is fine.
He was a product of many fabrics, many textures. His mother, Chiffon, soft and light, laid easily down to rest. His father, Georgette, durable, to the point of being dull. They came together and made Harry, who was Crepe. A bumpy rough material that wrinkled and folds in on itself. Often a patchwork of many different things. An apt descriptor for his existence.
Harry breathed. A novel thing. His lungs contracted. He lived. A novel thing. His edges frayed, but he kept breathing, kept existing. And that was his defiance. Existing was not anyones plans for him past the age of one. He did not care. He existed as an enigma, one who shouldn’t be alive, his scar attesting to this fact.
He wielded lightning and fire, burning himself in the process. His monster didn’t mind. Harry didn’t either. His quilt, once a beautiful thing, reduced to this mess of smoke and ash and thread and fabric and flesh. He would have no remains. He was eternally endless, but he was just a boy. He burned himself for the world to see, hanging from that cross. The blood of his father dripping down his face, the scars of his mother a permanent reminder.
He was a monster made of fire, and he was indescribably raw. His hands tangled in other’s quilts, his heart beating a steady rhythm. He meddled and he messed and he burned. His words would set the world alight, and he would feed the fire with his own. One day his quilt, his too tight thread , his too loose stitches, his singed fabric would all burn.
Harry was a supernova. Light and fire like no other, fueled by desire and rage and blood, fanned by his breath. He was candid, and honest and raw. He was the Father, he was the Son. He was thier body and soul and existence. Harry was a purpose, a power, a pawn.
Most of all however, Harry was a boy. One with fire in his veins and blood in his body, but a boy nonetheless. Sharp and soft, jagged and harsh, his quilt sewn together with sorrow. His body a vessel, his soul a star. His quilt did not matter, his breath, insignificant. His monster was always present. And Harry breathed.