Sherl Shots

Now I'm Gone

Now I'm gone and I hear you beg to feel my heartbeat, grabbing my wrist for a split second but it feels like forever. Forever in a second.

Now I'm gone, getting wheeled away on a gurney, trying my very best not to open my eyes and look back at you so I can see your face one more time.

Now I'm gone and I can't breathe, watching you cry alone in our flat, cry because I left you.

Now I'm gone and I stand just out of sight behind a tree, listening to you speak to me, or rather the idea of me and ask for a miracle. One more miracle, just for you, John.

Now I'm gone and my heart is heavy, sinking lower with each beat, reaching the soles of my shoes where I continuously step on it, hoping to stomp it out like a cigarette.

Now I'm gone and you're finally moving on, met a nice girl named Mary. You talk about her when you visit my grave and I have to bite my tongue. Bite it till it bleeds because I mustn't say anything.

Now I'm gone and you're going to propose to that nice girl named Mary and I can't lose you. Not like this. Not after all I've done. Sometimes, when I sit in the silence, I hear your voice. Like a faded memory, you taunt me with the promise that you'll stay even if I burnt the photograph.

Now I'm gone and I see how you look at her, I see the glint in your eyes, I see the quirk in your lips. I see the way you used to look at me and I feel my throat close, the threat of suffocation propelling me into motion.

Now I'm back and I'm trying to be loud discreetly, trying to tell you I'm alive. Trying to tell you I'm here. After all this time, all this pain, I'm here.

Now I'm back and you look at me with shattered desert plates for eyes and it cuts my tongue as I stumble for words, the cockiest sentence falling out of the creases of my lips.

Now I'm back and your hands are around my neck, I have half the mind to let you stop my heart. Half the mind to let you hurt me like I hurt you. But frightened exclamations cloud rationality and all I can do is try to pry your hands off me.

Now I'm back and we've been thrown out that nice restaurant. I'm trying to apologize, trying to tell you I was protecting you but I can't stop my tongue from wagging. I realize what I've done when your fist connects with my jaw, the deafening silence being the loudest thing.

Now I'm back and we're, yet again, in another restaurant. I try to explain how I did it, thinking that'd help. But I know it won't. I know you want to know why, but if I say why, I'll be exposing my innards to you and I know you'd rip them apart any chance you got because I ripped you apart and you want justice.

I must've said something wrong again because you lunge forward and grab my collar. I see you hesitate, hesitate long enough for me to see ice in the fire that is your eyes. You headbutt me, pain blossoming in my nose and splintering throughout my face. You've made my nose bleed and it's taken me back two years.

Now I'm back and I have my head tilted, serviette to my nose. I apologized and yet I didn't seem to do it right because you walk away, your back turned to me is the final word. The final action to show me you've had enough. The final action to show me you're done.

Now I'm back and I stare at the cab as it drives away, the blood slowly draining from my body. Leaving shrivelled, starving veins behind. My heart stops, mind quiets and now I know that you won't forgive me. Not for a long time. I feel as if I've been pushed up against a wall and shot. Over and over and over until I am as the sky, littered with holes that let the sunlight that is your smile through.

Now I'm back and I want to be gone.