Tether

They ask me questions with eyes of partially melted butter. The name clings to their tongues in thick sap. I swallow the bees, ignoring the stings that pierce my throat because all they wish to hear is the delicate flutter of butterfly wings.

Their idea of truth is the syllables their ears are ready to hear. If I were to tell them, I would deflate like a pierced balloon, left as wrinkled rubber on the pavement no longer free to fly. The truth would turn me into the stranger you cross the walk to distance yourself from.

The string that tethered me to sanity shredded into countless frayed threads.

I don't want to talk about her. I don't want to talk about her because I don't want to think about her.

I don't want to think about her because I don't want to suffocate alone in my bed where her memories jump the fence and I'm left counting the days, weeks, years...

When you think of her you see beautiful glass memories of smiles and laughter and all I see are the cracks and smudges left along the rim.

I don't want to lie awake thinking of her as cold and stale, pounds of earth below our feet where weeds and faux flowers decay atop her.

Where you see a life once lived, I see the infestation swirling through her head and between the fingers that once cradled me.

I don't see life after it's gone.

Tether

noun

- - a rope or chain with which an animal is tied to restrict its movement.