Lift

This music flows around me and I fall in it like the ocean. The waves lift me up then bring me down again and I smile. Because I know the next swell will be bigger, as will the one after that. As the waves get higher the troughs get lower. But I just know that there will be the one that takes me high enough that I can grab on to the sky and never come down. I won’t ever come down.

James Wortman

Tonight I’m coming home to a different home. Because I’m on the fourth floor now instead of three. Because of a phone call that told me that James passed away tonight when his heart just stopped beating. And there are other reasons, but that’s the one that gets me. That someone I’ve known my whole life died tonight while I was here, unaware, lost in my own cares that now seem so petty, so unprepared for the ending of a life.

I remember red

I remember the days when I would do anything for her. Patience, kindness, and all that. How she reeled me in. Then slit my throat and said, “Why this? Too much. Too much” as the blood flowed. But now I wonder if it was I who did it all. Pressing the blade in gently until I felt the give. Then pulling hard with the rush of madness until all was red and unrecognizable. And saying “Why this?”