I have been avoiding to write—about you.
Or have I been avoiding my feelings? Afraid to let them surface, look them in the eye, like I dared look you in the eye . . . and there was nothing there.
You were in a coma; what did I expect?
I thought I had accepted that you slipped away three days ago—in the bus shelter where you accidentally overdosed—until your friend asked me to accompany her, to come and see you.
I stood there looking down at you, searched your face, your body, for signs of awakening. I waited for you to open your eyes, to make the slightest movement, to twitch your mouth in an attempt to laugh.
Memories of last week’s scenario at the shelter played over and over in my mind: you and me laughing, having reached a compromise after calling me a fuckin’ bitch for not giving you what you wanted; you, having persisted for hours, resisting my every response, until your irresistible laugh—which I cannot wipe from my memory—released the tension.
Your hand was warm when I held it, stroked it, but when I let go, it just fell back on the sheet. There was none of that familiar resistance left in you.
I kept talking—because I had read you would hear me—and hoped for a miracle.
Or did I?
Your friend, nervous and intimidated by the clinical setting, did not believe you were gone and asked me to open your eyes.
Had I really expected you would look back at me when I pried your right eyelid open? I knew that I had, but not until after I encountered your lifeless stare.
I stared back at you—was it you, were you still there—for the three seconds I dared hold the lid, and all hope died.
I never went back.
I knew you would not come back.
You often said you wanted to die, and you did it.
Are you happy now?
Four days later they let you go, where you had gone already; unplugged you from this life.
But I have avoided to go there, to that place of truth.
I cannot reach the depths of me, just like I could not reach you when I scanned your lifeless eye. Have I become numb, anesthetized? Or have I come to believe—accept—that this world is not a place for everyone?
You had been beaten down time and time again; unable to stand up for yourself, drowned yourself in sorrows—steeped in alcohol—struggling with the process but never scared to reach for the goal.
Death.
Death was desirable because life was consumed by unfathomable pain, hopelessness and rejection. What right did I have to hope for the lengthening of your days in comparison?
Resignation is a form of death—a right reserved for the dying. Your comatose state represented that resignation; day by day the machine took over while your body let go.
Rest in peace.
I too, have resigned myself, but peace eludes me.
