what remains.

4 months ago today i lost you. 4 months ago today i lost myself. i go through these motions of life but there is no life in them. And it wasn't your death itself that brought me here, it was the journey to your death that has done it.
i can't get it out of my mind; watching you slip away. i felt at the time that i was trying to grab on to you and you were falling through my fingers like sand. i remember holding you as we lay down in your bed at the facility, it was a week before you died. you slept for hours and i held you as we both were soaked in your urine what ever else comes out in the messy business of death. you were so peaceful i couldn't bare to move you. that is all i could do for you at that point, try to give you peace. and i succeeded many times before you died. in your lonely confused tortured mind all i could do was bring you a sense of peace.
will i ever love again like i did with you...? i doubt it. i will not willingly do this again to myself. how can i? what remains of me to even do that?
 

memory

Talking to himself walking across the bedroom.
"i can't do it, i just can't. No. No."
laying down on the floor next to the bed in the fetal position.
"No, No. I can't do it."
curious and concerned.
"do what Jim? what can't you do?"
mumbling, distressed, twitching on the floor. covering his face with his hands.
sternly, "what can't you do Jim?"
"i can't. i can't stab that boy and throw him in the swamp. i can't, i can't do it. i can't kill that boy."

i'm stunned, everything goes quiet. i can't think. then i hear them fighting over some toy in the other room, "that boy" and his sister. i run to the door and shut it.

a week later i hear this episode being told to a room full of 20 doctors. i hear nothing but gasps and i turn to jim. the look on his face....
right after this meeting he tries to throw himself in front of a bus. he is so big. i hold him back at the first attempt. i can't hold him as he gets ready for the next one.
i let him go. i turn away.

a police car has pulled right in front of him.

that look on his face... at the time i felt guilty for holding him back because of that look.
i find no meaning in this memory. i want to leave.