Again

 

There it was again. That cold penetrating emptiness that suffocates the last breath out of you. That deafening silent scream that never makes it out of your lungs but burns every single time. That dry bitter taste on your lips that bleeds every time you try to speak so maybe silence is what you really needed anyway. There it was again. All of it. Again.

  

I was never a religious person but one night I thought maybe God had heard me. Remember that night? When I lost my voice to a demon you couldn’t see?  As I sat at the back of the church, contemplating what it all really meant, I saw you. I saw the way you walked, one foot behind the other, not really knowing where they were going but damn sure they would take you there. Turns out they took you here. I find myself going back to that night now and again. I think about the damp air around my cheeks, the burning in the back of my throat and the hazy blurs of light coming through the tears. I think about all of that and wish I could go back to it again. Wish I could go back to you again. 

 

Isn’t it strange? How you think something for so long that you don’t remember it is only a thought and not an actual fact? When you think the hazy eyes are the problem and believe that once they clear up things won’t be so bad? It’s funny really. I don’t think I ever really believed it but I just wanted to believe it so fucking bad. I wanted to believe things would be different once the alcohol was gone and the drugs were nonexistent. I wanted all of it to be true. But it wasn’t. When I thought things would get better they only got worse. I couldn’t fool myself anymore. Take away the alcohol and the drugs and there’s still a bit inside them that decides the things you don’t want to believe are true. But when they’re sober…when you look into their eyes and see the clear color of the iris for the first time in maybe your whole fucking life, when you breathe the air around them and are intoxicated with cologne and aftershave instead of twelve bottles of beer…when they talk, pronouncing every word correctly and getting through full sentences without repeating themselves five fucking times… when they do all this and still hurt you, that’s when you have to stop pretending. But you knew that. You knew that and never pretended like the waves were the problem. You always knew to curse the rain, not the sea. 

 

I thought I was looking for myself but maybe I was just hoping to find you. That night I was ready to meet God and ask him what it all meant. Really, what the fuck was happening? But you held my shoulders and you saw me. You really saw me. You saw the insecurities, the lies, the quivering smile and the fire dying behind my eyes. You saw it all and you still held me. All the things eating my insides, rotting away my soul, they all dissolved with a single touch. You didn’t ask for an explanation or say anything at all. You didn’t have to. As you held me I felt something I had never felt before. I felt a warmth that didn’t burn and filled my lungs with air that didn’t hurt. I felt so much and yet so little. Did you feel that too?

 

I know it’s hard. I know the air is hard to breath. I know the food has no taste and the nights go on forever. Trust me I know. I’m sorry your memory of that night is stained where my recollection comes to a finish. I know you play it again and again, just like me but with a different lens. It’s not your fault though, you didn’t know my dad would be looking for me. That behind the wheel of that old Honda there was a replica of my father, driving at full speed with toxic blood rushing through his veins. You couldn’t have known and so you believed the car would stop before coming into contact with my body. You believed the car would stop after it did. You believed that man would stop and try to help once he realized it was his own daughter lying on the concrete. I’m sorry none of that is true. I’m sorry I didn’t make it. I couldn’t wait for the paramedics to arrive and left long before my body ever made it to the hospital. I’m sorry. 

 

It’s been months since that night but I’m still here you know? I come back once in a while when you visit the church and sit at the back, like if you’re waiting for me to come through the door. When you hold your own hand the way I used to and think your feet are taking you nowhere, they always bring you here. They bring you back. They bring you back to me again. 

 

Again

 

It’s hard to say what is heavier at this point. The air sinking inside my lungs or the moisture drowning out my eyes. Everything is heavy since you left but then again, everything was heavy before you came in too. I scream and hope the venom in my words inflicts enough fear on that weight so it disappears. It used to work a lot before but now… now I think the venom likes to stay on my tongue and only invites more weight into the fragile carcass that my body has become. 

 

It’s hard to say when I fell in love with you but I knew I had to come clean the day I saw you sitting at the church. You looked as pensive as usual, with your brows almost becoming one and your eyes seeing beyond the floor laying in front of you. I was so nervous, you were always so assured and confident of what you were doing while I had to mentally tell my right foot to move after the left. When I sat next to you, I saw something different in your eyes. They were glimmering with the fluorescent lights above you but there was something dark grasping at the edges. You looked at me and before I could really think anything at all, my arms were doing what I had meant to do so long ago. I could feel your muscles relax after a long sigh, sinking into my torso and somehow taking away my breath but also allowing me to breath for the first time. I wanted to tell you so many things but you didn’t need my words. 

 

That night I was going to confess my love for you and ended up tongue tied for eternity instead. I think about what I would have said and if it would have made a difference. My friends keep telling me there’s no point in thinking about it, that it means nothing since your death was simply an accident but I can’t stop replaying that night and editing the ending. In my ending, you’re happy because the words I say fill you with joy. We walk out together, our fingers interlocked, and when we see the car coming I pull you close. In my ending, we have the same fate for better or worse. It’s not like that night, where you floated ahead of me as I blindly followed with my eyes looking down at my feet. Sometimes I try to erase the light right before you got hit. I try to make it all go dark before my memory shows me your body laying out on the street, your hair soaking red and a few gashes of white peeking through opened wounds. I try to hold on to the memory of your soft skin and calming voice but they keep getting distorted with flashing images of that night. Your skin becomes stained and is absent in places it shouldn’t be. The hard pavement holds you and makes the softness I once felt with you seem so far away. Your voice is almost inaudible, your gasps for air drowning out everything else you ever said. I keep trying to hold on to the little things but my memory keeps getting in the way. It keeps on making me relive that night again and again. Same ending each time.  Yet everytime losing a little bit of you.

 

I find myself trying to remember you by going to the back of the church again and again. I keep thinking that one day I’ll walk in and see you sitting there, mesmerized by a new concept or thing. My feet carry me to the spot near the door, the one you said was the best place to be in since it made you feel like the guard to the outside sin. I sit there and rub my thumb over my left hand, pretending like you’re next to me, trying to soothe away the pain and tricking me into peace. I can feel that bulge forming inside my throat and my eyes become so heavy I wouldn’t call this blinking but rather being almost asleep. I miss you so damn much that sometimes I really do believe I feel you here. Are you?