Lost, without a hand to hold. I imagine that's how some men feel in my position. As though everything they once had, all those they once knew, has gone forever. Because they were abandoned, or because they pushed it all away, who can say.
Yet it's weird, I've felt that way for so long, for so many years, I assumed that that would be how I felt at this moment. But somehow, staring at the noose before me, I've never felt more alive, and less alone.
I am guilty. I am innocent. I am a contradiction. And it doesn't matter....
Can the dust be blown off of some that isn't tangible, something that constantly whirls through us?
She didn't have a single hand to hold, but she wasn't lost. The events leading up to her disappearing were normal enough: the first camping trip of the season with a man she utterly, and hopelessly loved, a trip up to Wisconsin to feel some more of those Midwest roots, and then, some relaxing days of looking for some work.
And that was it. That's all it took for her to disappear, and leave the internet all together. Before this, she had high...
I remember when it started. We were playing cards, as we had done for years. It's a a simple way to pass the time when visiting your grandparents in the country. The comfort in the shuffling by sturdy hands. Methodical. Solid. Dependable.
"I don't seem to remember how the game starts. Refresh my memory."
Confusion was set deep in those smiling brown eyes.
We made it through that game, but it was the last game. Forgotten card game rules progressed into forgetting how to car and confusion over items.
I visit her in the nursing home, wishing I could pull...
She wasn't the kind of girl who kept love letters, wrapped in pink ribbon, locked in an inlayed wooden box. Not that anyone sent love letters these days.
She would have no wild stories of her youth to tell her neices, no lost loves, no ones who got away.
She was, as she always had been, just her.
She had got so use to being on her own, the proverbial independant woman, that she ended up so afraid, afraid of being any other way.
And so , even though she was still young, she had stopped looking for love letters...
They called it co-dependent. They labelled it, the need to go from one relationship to another, to never be alone - they labelled it like it was bad. Like it wasn't what everyone did.
Alright, maybe - just maybe - she took it too far, maybe she was a little too reliant on whoever's hand was (by rights) hers at that moment. Maybe it wasn't what they had decided was healthy, but their healthy? They could keep their healthy.
Their healthy was not her healthy, and it wasn't what she wanted. They decided all of these things, using test after...
She kept her eyes down, on her shoes. People brushed past her, maybe impatiently. She didn't move, she didn't walk.
She waited for someone to take her hand, to try to talk to her, to lead her away. It didn't happen. No one looked at her. Nothing happened, and she heard nothing. Better that way, because how could she explain anything?
Making the decision, she walked over to the bench, sat down at the very edge, across from a display of vacuum cleaners. Still, she stared at her feet.
Without warning, he was standing in front of her, cheeks still...
Walking briskly through the grey tainted forest, beads of sweat gathered on his forehead, gaining momentum before they trickled down his sullen face. The pale moon was high in the sky, befriending twinkling stars that seemed to swirl around whenever he tried to find consolation in their presence. From far away, an owl hooted into the night.
He didn't have a hand to hold. Lost, yet not lost, he was confused. Knowing who he was, what year it was, and where he was were all facts that he had down. But he wasn't sure of his exact location. Then again,...
She wandered between the potbellies and the beer guts, the sharp-cornered purses and the waist-length hair that tickled her nose. She could smell the body odor of the teenagers, ripe and fertile. Popcorn in cardboard buckets passed under her nose, the butter shiny like gold.
She wasn't afraid. There was nothing to be afraid of. They were people. People everywhere. It wasn't like being lost in the woods, in an ocean, in a cave. Those places where she would be alone, those were scary places. Here she wasn't alone.
The carousel echoed its off-key melody and bounced off the carny...
Running around the edge of an event horizon, static crackling, I never reach the black hole, or it's pulling me in ever so slowly.
After I met them, I thought I'd meet you. It seemed logical, even mathematical, that I would. But I didn't.
And now they're gone with only the echo vibrating, its waves ever-widening, seeking an elusive purchase.
My tastes widened for a while. I found brotherhood in loneliness, soon sought the sun, from one point in the universe to another.
Eventually I heard their songs through the static as a new black hole waltzed my way.
The...