LIVE|DEAD

I wish I could have saved him.

I think that if I had, I would have saved so much of myself as well.

Now we both just float.

So much of that dead weight gone.. but it was not lifted, it was not freed.

No. it was lost.

I can't speak for him.

Lord knows, as much as we are alike, we are so very different.

His mind, it divides at different volumes..

it halts at harsher speeds.

That's why this pain, the way it used to hit me, and the way it is hitting me right now.

Right this second, taking control of, and over my livelihood..

I know that it's that same pain that has got him by the throat.

It's the same pain that is putting an end to his time.. and therefore putting an end to ours.

But it's all coming together finally..

I was even told once that all ends meet somewhere.

But if that's true.. then tell me, how is a loose end born?

I think I know.

I think he is my loose end.

The one that'll never be put to rest. Not even after his own life is below the soil..

I can see it now.

A far less than perfect picture.

One my mind paints skillfully,

making me anxiously uncomfortable with every brush stroke I manage to invent.

And somehow, his name still sparks something deep within me.

It moves at that pace that keeps me at my knees, ringing throughout me..

even as I read it off a gray slate of surrender, of self sabotage.. of self defeat;

I'd be the girl who never left the grave.

Her mourning becoming second nature far more then she'd settled for.

Cheap looks would always be sent my way from the eyes of the bystanders.

Those blurry faces in the background, looking up at me, glaring as if my cigarette smoke were somehow a statement.

A sign painted in white fog that danced around me.

Inviting more death.

Welcoming more grief.

So I'd try just to smile.

Smile, and forget.

I know that they too are driven only by their own overwhelming loss.

But I'd be the girl they feared.

The girl who'd been draped in all black, long before she became that unwed widow.

The girl who had conversations with his bones, as if they could hear my heart dancing for him.

Yes, I'd be her.

Slowly becoming overgrown with those flowers.

The ones that had reminded me what it felt like to stare in his eyes.

At times it feels I'm already there, missing him.

It feels as though I'm already alone.

I guess it makes good practice.