What Dreams May Come

Night is cruel

Fucked...again

I’m not good at this.  I’m really not good at anything anymore.  I know I use to be.  I use to be determined and curious and had a thirst for things.  I don’t anymore.  I’ve dragged the corpse of whom I was around for years, hoping she’d come back.  Hoping I’d become her again.  Hoping all of this was worth it.  But it’s not.  And it’s not ending.  I see no end to this. 

It’s time to put her down, and with her, myself. 

God, I wish death were the answer.  I wish I wasn’t trapped, but I am, and there are no options for anything else.

Oh how quickly things get fucked up.  Totally and completely destroyed. 

I hate how I feel in my body.  The fat, the marks, the endless list of imperfections.  I’ve worked hard, and for years to be ok with it.  But today I hate it.  I hate constantly living in a fat suit I can’t take off.  I hate feeling betrayed by hunger.  I hate my mental weakness, my inability to force myself to make it better. 

I hate these pathetic thoughts.  I hate myself for feeling this way.  I hate the way I can’t see anything but this internal horror.

I would have left me too.

I’m not loveable.  2% is all it takes to make me this way. 

I’m sad my parents had me.  They could have had so much better.  They should have had so much better.

These frantic selfish thoughts. 

I’m sorry.  Sorry I’m so swallowed up within myself.  Sorry I can’t get out.  Sorry I’ve given up and given in.  Sorry the emptiness couldn’t be filled.  Sorry I was too flawed to feel the good things.

I told God I wouldn’t survive it a second time. 

I hate the nauseating burn of shame and embarrassment that accompanies rejection.

I'm on fire.

I hate the burning ache.  The one that splashes over me when you pass through my mind.

W, the thought of you is mingled with the thought of J.  As the dreaded June 17th creeps upon me I fell myself numbing up,  yet yearning to feel pain.  Physical pain, anything to distract my aching heart.

I can't take this anymore.

I can't take this again.

I shouldn't have believed.

Foolish, once again.

Experiences

Today, while driving home I thought about the mom, the one whose son hung himself.  I thought about the 12 hours I spent with her, waiting for donors to be found.  Waiting for all of the tests to be run.  Waiting for the procurement teams to come and collect the vital bits and pieces he had left to offer.  I thought about her eyes, red from sobs, all cried out.  I thought about the confused look on her face as she pointed to her son, tethered to a ventilator and multiple IV's. "He's not dead" she said over and over.  His pink cheeks and artificially warmed skin giving the illusion of life.  I thought about the police officers, standing guard, watching closely as his soulless body gave rise to the air being forced in his lungs, tricking his heart into thinking it was suppose to keep beating.  I thought about the four hours I spent in the OR waiting room, watching her vacillate between the anger of a mother bear, and the hurt of an abandoned child.  I thought about the moment, the moment she said she wanted to stay, she wanted to see him one last time.  I tried to warn her.  Warn her that a body warmed by heated blankets and pumped full of chemicals doesn't look dead.  I told her of the ashen skin, the cold skin, the way loving features sink into the harsh contours of a skeleton.  I advised her not to go, not to enter the room and look behind the curtain.  But one can not stop a parent from seeing their child.  Her sobbing scream echos in my head as I see her throw her heaving body across that of her son.  "You killed him" she cried, "you killed him".  I reached out a hand of comfort, the officer standing near stared at the floor, twisting his black shoe back and forth, counting the seconds.  "It's time to go", I said, blinking hard, regretting the late hour and the four hour drive home.  "It's time to go home".  An animal-like moan resonated from the mass of mother and son.  "I know you don't want to leave, but it's time to go".  She clenched harder, gritting her teach, "you can't take him away, you killed him, you killed him!".  The officer stepped in, hiding behind the innate force of his job he placed his hand on her shoulder.  She twisted underneath his touch.  "Don't make this any harder than it already is," he said.  Looking at me he motioned for help.  "Come, it's been a long night, " I said, gently reaching for her hand  "YOU KILLED HIM" she screamed looking in my eyes.  She needs to believe this, I told myself, she needs to believe that you killed him.  I didn't kill him, but I almost wished I had, wished her pain could forever be focused on me, on someone other than the one who actually made the choice to die, someone other than her son.  I thought about the officer and I, physically prying her off of her dead son's body.  Feeling the invasive necessity of our actions.  My heart hurt for her, hurt for the nightmare she would never wake from.  I thought of how she'd aged over the few hours I'd spent with her.  An old woman, about to bury her child.  I cringe now as I cringed then.  Too much pain.  Too much loss.  And grief that one can never comprehend.

That was the day you called to ask me if you should keep the TV, the one you didn't pay for.  I was overwhelmed by death that day, and you wanted me to tell you it was ok to steal.  Ok to forgo honesty.  

It wasn't ok.  Nothing was ok about that day.  But you didn't ask, and you kept the TV, and every time I looked at it I thought of her, and the ashen child wrapped in white sheets.

South Carolina

it was a dream
but the screams were real
quick
frantic yelps
my mind caught between
fragments of reality

he scooped me up
rocked
held me tight
till the screams
subsided to pathetic whimpers

he didn't say a word
but I felt it
wrapped around my body
curled in his arms
one brief moment

repose from the horror
of being awake

there is a part of me that is covered in blood
choking on spit and bile
a gurgling scream
rising from the shuddering sobs
locked within the recess
of isolation
It is there that I claw at my face
just to feel
stinging agony
Something to break the melancholy
silence of endless waiting