Setting: The wake before a clear crowned casket. A young woman, early 20’s, stands in shock before blonde Snow White that has been her best friend for ten years. She attempts to maintain composure. The intimacy is harrowing.
“I found a piece of your hair in my toothbrush last night. I didn’t know what do to with it. Eventually I found the nerve to flush it down the toilet. Some mornings when I cannot breathe in the perfectly still air, I feel you lurking somewhere in the dawn’s early light. I hear these lonely whimpers in the distance, and I can barely hear you say that you are clean…again.
There are these remnants of your lingering everywhere. In every word, every song, every poem I write. How is that fair, that you just leave and I’m still here without redemption or reasons or my fucking favorite red jacket that you borrowed last week?…Bitch.
Well, here we are in this moment of all the plaguing nightmares, that I thought had safely died. You lying in that iron bed…and I am so cold. Why do you get to hide in there, obscured and safe?
How perfect still, you look, that Angel face and pure blonde hair…those great eyes. I’m so sorry that your eyes had to see what they did. And now I am here with what’s left, a cold, pale, lank body. Well you aren’t fooling me; I know who you are inside…and I love you so much. Why couldn’t you understand that, that I would always love you no matter what was reflected in your eyes or what your body endured, and not just because you were radiant, but because without me you were only half, and without you my life is not so beautifully lived. You were the Angel of my life, the halo over my head.
You probably don’t even remember that. How could you as numbly rode the heroic white horse right by me, in search of tarnished needles and couches to nod off on? And you always came back, but I had to give up holding you, because I always held you and you never got better. Like that day on the porch when you stretched the punctured underbelly of your arm across my lap and asked me what to do, like I had a say in it all.
If only I could have stopped you that last time, if just for once my prayers were the Heroine. And that last time…plays over and over in my mind, like the ghost of a pedestrian that has shattered against my windshield. I’ll never forget the look in your eyes, when I walked into your room, as you were plunging that needle into your big blue vein. And all those worthless pieces of shit just sat there, while I tied to make you stop shaking. God, you were so disgusting and scary and you said to me, “You are all that I still love.”
What the fuck is that supposed to mean? That I wasn’t enough? And I don’t care if nobody ever triumphs over the heroine, I was supposed to...we were supposed to.
That night I slept, my pillow drenched in spit and snot, and I dreamed about you and me holding my hands. We were dressed in all white, like heavenly cherubs. You reached for my hand as if you knew the way, no struggle…just big smiles. Just like when we were ten and used to say “Don’t Die,” instead of good-bye because we read it was cool on Seventeen.
And when we finally reached the light, I couldn’t remember anything that had happened. We played hide-and-seek in these bushes that looked like the ones in your front yard. Only then I couldn’t find you. I sat down and cried on the curb. Then I heard your angelic voice saying “I’m sorry for hurting you…I love you so much.. Don’t Die.”
I woke up knowing that that was the end of your pain, I suppose some souls just aren’t made for this place for very long. These are the times when I feel you just aren’t made for this place very long. These are these times when I feel you pulsating inside my chest. Dennis thinks I’m crazy, but I can’t help feeling this big hole…this absolute emptiness, like someone has stabbed me right in the heart with a huge needle. I keep thinking that one day I’ll find the path that makes me to that place where we can be best friends again, in a white world.