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Anxiety
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If there were appropriate words for what has transpired I would have said them by now, but as I watch him walk into the small vistor's room I know that there is nothing left I can give him, and there are no phrases in which I can relate how much I am sorry and how much I knew this was going to happen. Of course it was. Weren't we doomed for something as simple and as dramatic as the lines on his sleeves? If I tried to make him understand I know he wouldn't be able to swallow the lie I served him.
Fear is a funny thing, and desperation is downright hilarious. Both show in his face and it almost makes me want to laugh to think I caused him so much worry only to make it so much worse. If there was any reason for me to do what I did, it was because I could bring him nothing else.
He doesn't know he carries a light or that I want to sunbath in his colorful wake but he does notice my hands. They shake a little every now and then like souvenirs from a place I never got the map to and never wanted to visit in the first place.
There are no coverups for what has happened and I stand there feeling exposed when my sleeves reach past my fingertips and the sound of my breathing is so ragged it covers whatever thoughts that might leak out my ears and whisper how sorry I am to see his brilliant smile go.
I want to ask him why he's surrounded by so much insanity though the crazy bug already bit me -and boy did I scratch it- so I know it's a question I know how to answer. The white of the walls only furthers to bleach whatever witty comment I could have gotten from my broken mind and I simply say "I remember you"
It's not like the depression medication gave me more than potential death- and amnesia isn't on my medical records- but he knows that when I speak those words I am referring to him in the sense that I remember his caring nature, his willing hands and a promise I never wanted to keep.
He knows me well enough to know I can count and maybe it bothers him that I didn't even bother to let him know that I didn't know how many white nails I put in my own coffin when the bottle said "take two daily".
I promised him the world in my own eyes- which is to say I promised I would keep my heart beating long enough to see it for myself.
His empty pupils are swimming though neither of us will shed a tear in the blaring inhospitality of the hospital corridor. It seems only fitting that I got a room with a view of the city I grew up in while I am being fixed in a home so much more confining than my empty place.
Empty...like his eyes, like the other side of the phone call to my parents that just kept ringing, like my stomach because they pumped everything out- the secrets I tried so hard to keep in my blood and off my clothes but while the sun shone so brightly off his face, it made the blades sparkle like stars and I saw my favorite constellation in them.
It's funny, really. His empty eyes look so sad and his face is eclipsing into something like anger or betrayal so much that while I am the one who tried to kill myself he is the one who truly needs the comfort. So I wrap what parts of him I can best reach from my barefoot position and hold him quietly, wanting to apologize for something I do not yet regret though the pain in his face hurts more than the burial ever would.
He lets out a broken sigh, caught between hating me and loving my warmth, breathing in skin that only quick medical procedure could let him experience again.
"Please don't leave me" is all he can say, and though I feel like mending his broken question with an answer that will satisfy him I know I cannot.
"I already have."
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This is the original poem that I wrote that inspired the story 'Anxiety'.
