Alone

June 2006


Alone
How long have I been alone? 15, 16 years? I suppose I could investigate the matter by looking through old checkbook registers; they're always a wealth of information. Funny, the exact year is unknown to me, yet the pain seems as acute as yesterday. Like old wounds; they heal. but the pain never really goes away. The exact dates and times are only an oblique distorted images, fuzzy on the fringes, but unwilling to exit my mind, as if woven tightly into the brain tissue, double-stitched, permanently epoxied, never to separate from the memory banks without ripping out my brain tissue with it. I suppose a lobotomy would take care of it. Do I feel any love for her any longer? I think not. She appears in dreams now and again, but very cleverly hides her face, never looking into my eyes, never talking to me, but there in a brief embrace for a split instant, then vaporizing before my bewildered eyes. Like this morning at 2:00. I awake, my feet twisted and entwined by the sheets, a cold sweat permeating my body, and that familiar pain, never looked for, but none the less making its cameo appearance all the same. They say time heals all, but that of course is just not true. Is it because the pain is as a mutating virus, continually changing its structure omnipotent to any antibiotics, or a cancer that is so ingrained in the soul that it will never be cut out, or eradicated?