November 19 - 4:42 pm

Wade into the Storm

This is what I must do: acknowledge who I can never be again, accept what I am. Older than dried shit, sick as last month’s soup. Hanging by a thread in an empty house, working in a coffee shop to make rent after a life behind a badge. In love with a woman young enough to be my daughter, wise enough to by my mother. Every joint hurts. Every nerve is a frayed wire. I’m out of time and fading fast, with nowhere to go but down. Fresh out of illusions.

The bodies are piling up. I can smell Eager’s blood and vomit along with mud and wet fir needles. A little boy is lost in the dark. Luellen is up the hill, her and others. Grandpa, his man, maybe Myra. I look up through the trees into the amber glow of dusk and dream I have one last gasp in me. Maybe, just maybe, I can get to my feet, climb up out of the shreds of my life, and do something worth remembering.

Did you kiss me because of how you feel about me, or because you’ve lost faith in who you are?

I draw a breath, heave myself upright.

Breathe ...

breathe ...

     breathe.

“Ruby Jane.” I speak to the weighty, indifferent clouds. Streaks of red vein the sky at the horizon. “I hope I’ve found the way past myself.”

I wade into the storm.