Statistics That Will Change Your Death

February 11, 2008

I noticed the gradual slipping away
into the night; i am more aware than you ever will be aware of.
i remember a whisper in my bleeding eyes:
"i lie because you can't handle the truth."
no, i can't handle the lies.
everything was golden for a bit, then quickly fades to livid grey.
the bitter aftertaste of poetic posion in my heart.
even as you're not here, i see you,
so close but too far away.
if i try a little harder, if i cry a little more, maybe you'll come back.
if i soil your good soul with my tears and droplets of silver revenge, will you come back to me?
but desperation is death, separation is life.
tainted by bruising love, i didn't see...
i was better off without you.
but can i just let go like that?
can i change from a broken "kid that didn't make it" to another shocking statistic?
can i let them hook me up to machines and let them store into my mind, but they will never touch my heart?
i am not a statistic.
i am not a lost lover.
i am not your sweet revenge.
incoherent and oh-so-profound to hide the scars.
too young, too forsaken, too claimed.
they'll all bow their heads in sugar-coated, fake sorrow, to please the mourning parents.
they'll touch my cold, dead skin and whisper a goodbye, but i hear not what comes from their mouth.
i hear the words i crave and fear.
the ones that show they cared too much to not come, but not enough to be sincere.
they'll cry their tears though they feel no regret.
"what a shame."
"such a beautiful girl."
they will mutter to their eternally healthy spouses and children, as if death is a mistake i've made.
they're right.
i am a shame, but i'm not beautiful.
i was only beautiful once, under the warm glow of love.
but someone sits in the back of the pews, far backed by shadows.
they do not cry.
they do not speak.
they do not go to my coffin.
it is a boy. his face holds the still grace of familiarity, but when i come to grasp his name, my mind chases it farther back.
as first i feel outraged.
why would he come to my funeral, and not as much shed a tear?
i study his face with the parochial eyes of suspicion.
then he breathes a word.
no, two.
i know what i am wanting to hear is tainting the truth, but i again struggle to listen.
come.
back.
then i remember who he is. the one who caused this.
"is this not what you've wanted?" i ask of him... increduosly.
"never" he speaks softly, as if his words are causing a drift between us.
"never?" i begin. "then what were the lies and the pain? were they to make me happier, that you hated me so much as to lead me down to Hells gates? you knew..."
he closed his eyes and took a painful step forward.
then he repeated never. and returned to his pew.
stunned, i remember all of it.
the medications the machines the tubes the wires the "worried" nurses.
i was wrong.
i am just another statistic for some scared, hearthbroken teenager to read about.
but i had forgotten the missing edge.
what if i had mistaken lies for the truth, which seemed too good to be true?
and i had.
so it's not his fault i will never be with him again.
that i will never hold his hand, or calm his fears, or walk beside him again.
that he will go though the rest of his years, knowing i will never feel summer's breeze of winter's darkness or fall's new beginnings again.
and all that time, he will lose hour of sleep and nightmares, thinking it's his fault.
when it had been mine all along.
now i can only sigh and think about that missing edge...