Fruits of Insanity

the line

The moon weeps long trails of light falling into the sea as I watch from the water, alone. I have nothing, no one—that’s why I sit, letting the world mourn for me.

She left me. Oh, she’s still present, sitting across from me at breakfast, meeting my eyes for an instant and then passing over me as though I don’t exist. I’d never known how lonely a bed could be until she turned her back and shrugged off my comforting arm. I’ve tried to give her space, to give her time to process but I don’t know what she needs or how to give it to her anymore.

She doesn’t seek my help, and I think she hurts more to see me.

I don’t know if she can see clearly enough to know—I’m hurting too.

He was real to me, no matter what words she hurls at me in her grief and rage. I dreamed of him, too, while he grew and fluttered under her heart. His loss aches in the back of my throat as though I had swallowed the sea. And I can’t blame her for withdrawing. But each time she turns away, I bleed for her.

I’m running low on blood—soon there will be no part of me that isn’t wounded.

How do people live when there is nothing but loss? No one to blame. There was nothing she could have done, nothing I could have done to keep him. I know that, and I almost believe it as I say it again and again. If there were something I could rage at, maybe I would heal.

Instead, I row out and sit, letting the moon blur until it reflects ten thousand tears, and I feel the boat creak and rock and I think of how little space there is between life and death—just an empty boat and a ripple on the sea that spreads out into everywhere and disappears.

Prompt 10
the week of October 4

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