From when the skies

Yams | Lawrence Strothers | Digital

From when the skies were ours  by Genevieve Dreger

I still look back on it, during those nights when the skies are rough and i toss and turn as i’m tossed and turned about the cabin. In the low light i stare at my hands and think about what i came from. You are always there, sitting in the corner of my room on the little barrel i learned to leave for you so i wouldn’t have to watch you hover. So i could pretend that your edges don’t bleed color because you aren’t really there, not anymore. You were a necessary sacrifice. It was a necessary evil.

I loved you, you know. I know you won’t believe me, but i did. He wouldn’t have accepted your blood if I hadn’t. I can hear you now, still telling me I should stop listening to him. I won’t, but you know that. He gave me what i wanted. What do i have left to lose? Not you, certainly. Not anymore.

But I will admit to lying, love. Because there is one lie you took to your grave because it was all you had left. It was the last thing you heard.

I never loved you. I loved what you were worth.

I can't live with you not knowing that I lied. I hoped, maybe, it would make it better. That way you could pass on, and never think of me again, because all you’d be is disappointed. I didn’t really mean it, though. Because I do love you, now and forever, and maybe it's my own fault that i don't deserve you, but that won't stop me from wanting you. I love you and it will never, ever, mean that I get you back.

So instead i sit and i think as the grand sails hold us aloft in the sky we both loved so much and i whisper to your ghost, over and over,

I love you.