Two days later I fall asleep, momentarily, huddled in a corner, tired and weary to the last vestige of my soul, knife clasped desperate clinging exhausted, and my father finds me. I barely see him, and this is how he finds me. For three days his wine-addled brain only wants to talk of the incident, wants to understand, wants an explanation.
How do you explain the experience of seeing your own life pour fourth (oh, again, the cliches) dripping down lazy slow, the length of your arm a sudden measure of the length of your life? If he has never seen it, he will never know. And in the year and a half since the last time I've seen it, I could never, ever forget.
Driving to my parents' home from the train station tonight, a man, old shirtless uncaring, rides a bicycle through my dead town. He weaves and wobbles and nearly falls - oh, that abandon, that uncaring fortitude he exudes with a force known only through age. To feel that, now, young and supple and without the force of gravity, oh, the joy. His wheels turning and turning, rotation like the very depths of the ocean. He knows, he knows.
He knows the sorrow and melancholy, he knows the desire to drink, to die, to lie in wait for the chilled bony-knuckled hand of death. And who am I to complain of my chemically-weaved stupor? Who am I to question when it is my life should run out, in a warm comforting soul-hugging release of metal to flesh? Who am I to wonder if it would not be better to simply cease?
Shae, oh, Shae - unaware that things are not all right. Not all right because the revelation of Kirsten leaves me feeling as though the lump of muscle in my chest won't ever beat with passion again. Tristan has thoroughly trounced me, left me incapable of feeling the things Shae feels. And in the long run, there is no reason for leaving Shae - so he's forgetful, dismissive at times, incapable of taking a hit for me, so what? His heart's in it. My heart? Gone.
How do you explain the experience of seeing your own life pour fourth (oh, again, the cliches) dripping down lazy slow, the length of your arm a sudden measure of the length of your life? If he has never seen it, he will never know. And in the year and a half since the last time I've seen it, I could never, ever forget.
Driving to my parents' home from the train station tonight, a man, old shirtless uncaring, rides a bicycle through my dead town. He weaves and wobbles and nearly falls - oh, that abandon, that uncaring fortitude he exudes with a force known only through age. To feel that, now, young and supple and without the force of gravity, oh, the joy. His wheels turning and turning, rotation like the very depths of the ocean. He knows, he knows.
He knows the sorrow and melancholy, he knows the desire to drink, to die, to lie in wait for the chilled bony-knuckled hand of death. And who am I to complain of my chemically-weaved stupor? Who am I to question when it is my life should run out, in a warm comforting soul-hugging release of metal to flesh? Who am I to wonder if it would not be better to simply cease?
Shae, oh, Shae - unaware that things are not all right. Not all right because the revelation of Kirsten leaves me feeling as though the lump of muscle in my chest won't ever beat with passion again. Tristan has thoroughly trounced me, left me incapable of feeling the things Shae feels. And in the long run, there is no reason for leaving Shae - so he's forgetful, dismissive at times, incapable of taking a hit for me, so what? His heart's in it. My heart? Gone.
