She pored through the pieces of my past. A youth with a grin filled with ignorance, bliss. I had burned them out of my mind, only to have them return. As though the screams in the evening weren’t enough. I cinched the strings around my ribs, tighter, tighter.
What if tomorrow were my last?
Such were my thoughts, as I stood in the shower and pressed my palm flat to my stomach. It would be the last time it would feel or look this way. I closed my eyes and tried to memorize the feeling.
I wondered if they could do everything laparoscopically, making little incisions, until they realized they’d have to cut me open after all. Perhaps they could connect the dots.
I was marked with red. I was told never to take it off. Cross-matched and typed, so that they would know the blood that flowed through my veins. Would it all drain out on the table?
I had several appointments to keep today. It rained, and I feared I would fall ill, the very evening before surgery. All I could do was feverishly whisper prayers to God and clench my teeth and fingers.
It felt so strange, driving home. I listened to the rain, paid attention to the fading colors that receded into darkness. I wondered if I’d see it again. A dull rainbow showed through the grey, a pleasant surprise. A fighter.
If I were gone, all I could think of is how much I haven’t done. How much I meant to do. Maybe I’d find out what I was meant for. All that I wanted to do. People I hadn’t met, opportunities missed.
To those of you reading, know that I appreciate it. That I’d hoped to write some seemingly beautiful and grandiose thing and try, try not to avoid morbidity. I have tried opening my eyes to reality, and know that this is what needs to happen. That I’ve made this decision and that it will hopefully be for a better purpose. And that I thank you, dear reader, and hope that we will meet again.
And so I say, “Let’s do this.”
And I would cradle your head to my chest and whisper endlessly, “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
We ran into one another on a stairwell.
I was headed downstairs, and you were coming up. Our eyes met, and for a moment, everything paused. It was all I could do to whisper your name, once, twice.
You gave me a faint, pained smile. I noticed your ring. I wanted to convince myself it was anything else but the truth.
You always told me never to wait.
Probably because you didn’t want me after all; you knew that even after all this time and all we had gone through, it’d still amount to nothing (which I always knew would happen); or you wanted me to have a chance at being happy.
Which was probably the truth.
Do you remember when we ran through the trees? When our feet grew caked with mud and we laughed until the light faded through the branches? When fingers and lips became entangled as we hid beneath the gnarled roots and traced our spines into the bark?
I don’t, either.
(via Camp NaNoWriMo)
Good Lord, I am going to try again. And this time, I really have no clue where it’s going. And I’m three days behind— let’s go! (Assuredly writing on vacation should get me somewhere… Right?)
