today, the house is quieter than usual. the boys run about in their usual manner, but though they try to hide it, my parents' wires are wound tightly this morning. they string their smiles along their cheeks in a way that is too taut to be natural, and they are gentler. mother does not nag and father does not scream. they don't hurry me along in my routine, and i see with my eyes the way in which they study me carefully with their own. they wish to know if i've remembered. if i've realized.
of course i have.
the first half of the past year flew by, but just before christmas, it's as if my happiness snagged on a wing of the angel atop our plastic tree and hung there, caught, stuck. i hadn't the strength to even attempt to free it.
this month i have summoned the little posture i do possess, as i have always been a woefully weak creature, in order to conceal the agony you're causing me. did you read that? i just endeavored to blame you for your own death. true, you made the jump, but perhaps it's my fault that you ran to that cold, perilous height in the first place.
perhaps it was your father's, or your bullies' at school. perhaps it was mine. i don't know, i don't know, i don't know.
it has been three years and i want to tell you that i still weep for you. not to aggrandize my loyalty, for i deserve nothing of grandeur, but to assure you that you did, in fact, matter.
of course, you were probably too smart to care about that sort of thing. you were a bit of a pragmatist, weren't you? you felt immense pain and wished to end it. i only hope that you succeeded.
the possibility of any other outcome is too much to bear, i'm sorry. forgive me for my feebleness, for my pathetic nature. in life and in death, you deserve so much better.
all i can offer is tearful apology and remembrance. what a piteous sacrament. what disgraceful irony.
YOU ARE READING
the shepherd's sword
Random[the things we dare not say aloud] the walls have faces, you know. the angels do not.
