Minnesota Goodbyes

Entry #2

We're alone, I think, you and me. Alone together. Do we even exist on the same plane? Or are we each other's phantoms and mere figments of imagination? It's hard for me to tell.

Maybe you aren't alone though. Maybe you're still connected to people.

I know I'm not. Really, I have no one to blame but myself. I wear my guilt like a brand or the Mark of Cain. No one can touch me or look at me, and if I get close, I'll harm people seven times over. It's better that I stay away. Invisible. That's why I'm writing to you. (Not writing, really. Confessing. Explaining.)

I didn't use to be like this. Isolated and such.

The pair of us (us) used to lean against each other, throwing our heads back laughing. I couldn't feel the loneliness pressing in; it didn't exist. I can see it as a snapshot: her and I shoulder to shoulder, a stray hair tickling my nose, my legs crossing over her lap. Hair tossed and throats exposed. Eyes crinkled from the force of our laughter.

It was haunting, the melody we created.

When I feel alone, it's because the thread between us has been cut. The frail web that connected us snapped, and I remember we were there (we were we were) laughing, and I now feel nothing.

N o t h i n g.

Because I killed her and she is gone and I was left here. And she's dead, but I'm the ghost.

I can't banish the memories. Her.

Her warm body pressed against mine. And that moment speeds up again, and our arms wrap around one another and the noise lingers in the air and the room is hot from the force of our life and our gasps of laughter.

Can you see it? Can you see what happened? Because for a brief flicker of a moment, she felt real. Like she still exists and I am redeemed. Only in memory can she forgive me. Only in memory.

So I am alone on this plane, except for you. Human awareness stretches between the pair of us. A fragile thread connecting your existence to mine. You are here. I am here.

Alone together.