bondage

Just Jack ‘Snowflakes’

You have the world ahead of you they all say. Shout. Tell. Retort. Insist. I see that. I see myself passing opportunity, letting them die, walk off, turn away, move across the country, and my reaction begs the question why? but my actions are those of tied hands.

Wind blowing through my hair, tear streaming solitary down my face mirroring my internalized emotion, I waved him off, wishing him well, loving him, and letting him go. He never came home to me. My soliliquoy at grave-side is drowned in images of him buried not in the earth beside me and soul skyward, but under the sand, sweat, and camoflauge that took him in the first place, and the last he ever saw.

Now they tell me what doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. You’re the strongest one we know they say. Patronize. Comfort. Pity. They tell me from over a shoulder, on the way out. I have everything, and continually nothing, like tasting sugar; something real dissolves and before you can enjoy it, there’s nothing left but a sweet aftertaste.

“Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone. I know that’s impossible, but it’s too bad anyway.”

In so many instances, a girl is the one that got away. I am the one that never left. I’ll be foolish, and I’ll see you off when you’re ready to go.