Life and Death

Race isn’t a hot topic, click bait for a trend,

Driving up the number of hits as the heart rates drop and expire,

You try and keep it out of the conversation because you don’t want being human to get political but it’s too late,

Hate spread a virus of intolerance, fear spread a pandemic of ignorance.

I never thought I’d be hearing Eric from an ocean away, there were dozens before him and they’ll be dozens after him.

I don’t cry on the bus when she complains she can’t breathe, I gave her my spare mask but vanity prevails over safety. 

Vision blurred as I breathe quietly, grateful for the breathe I have. She doesn’t know how much it hurts for me to hear those words echoed. I thought I’d left that behind but violence is a worldwide pandemic, inescapable.

I laugh as we head into town on the bus. “Well at least you don’t have glasses.” I try and put a sunny spin on it, glad she can’t see me wince as she takes off her mask to put in her hair, TLC’s Unpretty playing in my mind. My voice is trapped. I want to tell her to put it back on, only she’s not the only one without a mask. I breathe slowly; I won’t allow her to infect my calm with her disrespect. I listen through clouded eyes, seeing the vibrant flashes of murals as we go, three by two.

 An elderly woman a row behind us has quietly pulled hers down for a few moments and whispers that she can’t either, I quietly smile my understanding and nod to her. She smiles back at me.

 Here’s our stop and she bars me from going to pick up the rubbish she’s left behind, fake hair that will later be grabbed but she doesn’t know that yet, nor that she’ll stop wearing them. She doesn’t know that I’ll have to stand between her and a wall of hatred, alcohol’s obliterated her memory and I can’t make her see. She doesn’t remember the times I’ve stood up for her but I’ll remember the times she let me down. I’ll remember the look she gave me when others lies had been spoken to her before I’d had the chance to.

My rage is simple. It comes from my own inability to calmly communicate something very simple to someone who refuses to listen because they want to be right all the time.

Disrespect is never right.

She tells me she can’t move without pain as she lays in bed, I refuse to aid and abet as she lies to her loved ones and says she’s not drinking, mixing morphine and pain pills from a neighbour while her medication rots away at the side of her bed, the same way I can see her insides rotting.

There are enough people dying right now, I’ve cleaned up her blood and her sick now I’m walking away, still breathing quietly while I can. She tells me, a woman who’s come back from the land of dreams, that she has none, she just wants a release. I can’t heal her, help her, fix her. I love her but I’m a selfish bitch who’s discovered that she loves herself more and can’t have such toxicity constantly within her proximity. I breathe through my mask as I clean up her mess, it’s a thankless job but I don’t want to be thanked.

She’s grown, stronger, weaker, as have I.

She tells me she doesn’t want to die while the addiction arrogantly and slowly kills her.

I love her faintly now. I neither hate, nor pity her. I just feel a great sadness when I look at her. She’s romanticised death, afraid of life and exists in a limbo. With every breath she lies to herself, the same way we all do, that she’s fine. But if she were honest with herself I know I could love her fully, if her will to live were still hidden inside of her then maybe….

But her addiction owns her, consumes her, drags her out of bed. A society and situation that she has tried to fit into has ended up twisting her, morphing her from someone to something. There’s a woman in there deep inside who has done amazing things and still can, I catch a glimpse of her when she’s been alone for a while. I can see where she ends and the alcohol begins and that’s probably when I should start judging or hating her but I don’t because I know that’s not who she is.

As I breathe, I hope I’ll see her get better, knowing she cares about what people think about her,  rumours on the street that could break her as she collapses on the ground, a friend helping her home, a mission to retrieve her lost memory and phone as dawn filters through the window.

 I often feel like her mother does, afraid of that call, one day, that she didn’t wake up because she knew better and kept drinking, never took the medicine as if she knows better than someone who’s spent years of their life working towards helping to save others.  

She thinks I’m an angel, but I’m human, so I feel things. My ability to love comes with the only condition of honesty, but I lie to her, text her a complete love heart, check she’s still breathing as the tv is blasting.