He needs me. Really, he said it himself…he needs me. He has scars, but his scars run so much deeper. They’ve burrowed into his brain and they’re killing him, pushing him, driving him insane.
To the brink
And how much I hate it, but love it, that I’m the one there holding his collar, holding him back. But what if I slip? What if the right words fail me and he disappears from my grasp? I already have a hard time knowing what to say. I stumble and mumble and my words get so jumbled. So, what if the time comes and I need to say exactly the right thing, and I mess it up?
What then?
I’m going to keep trying though, mincing my words, rearranging and changing them till they fit in tight, sound just right. Let them grow into stories and paragraphs until they can caress him with their letters.
Until they heal his wounds and provide a hug with just a sentence. I will drag him from the edge with my adjectives and leash him to sanity with a chain made of nouns and prepositions.
On that cliff made of hate and misunderstandings, I’m going to try and save him.
But what if he does fall? Would it be my fault, an assisted suicide? I would fall upon my knees and watch him crash against the rocks and the wind would cover my screaming. It would be my chain that broke, my hands that were too weak to hold him. My words that couldn’t keep his demons at bay.
Would they blame me?
No, they wouldn’t. Because they didn’t even know I was there. They would whisper their fake goodbyes and cry counterfeit tears and never know that they could have helped me hold him back. That they are the reason he’s falling.