I dreamed of standing over you in a hospital.
The scent of latex and linoleum felt like lead in my stomach. I swallowed a lot of myself that day, fending off a horrible, persistent apparition in my peripherals. It whispered to me, and I believed it, and I let it tell me all that it had to tell.
You were narrow and thin, a perfect split down the center of a tiny bed. A projection of yourself, the little person you always insisted on being, as you begged, persistently, palm extended, empty, perfectly nourished, poisoned beneath the layers of your skin, the pills regrouping, waiting for their chance to strike out against your calculated sovereignty.
I looked down upon you from a million miles above — not floating, but dangling, by a vessel I couldn't see. We never touched, maybe once, but I was carrying you beneath me, knowing I had to let go, knowing I would, always knowing I wouldn't need long to think about it. Because in those half-open eyes, drooping under the weight of, not age, maybe even the lack of it, I saw just how heavy indignity was. I saw her standing naked in the yard, the backyard, a story that was once told or maybe I dreamed it, but in the end, it doesn't really matter. It exists for me, and no one will ever talk about it, not so long as either of us live. I saw her standing naked in the backyard, your face a perfect blur, an expressionless mark on a memory that is just as real as fact, and as impressive to me as fiction. Maybe she was crying, she was probably crying, the knot in her head either tightening to the point of madness or loosening, letting go, releasing the pressures of genetics and The Great Depression, and the remnants of an oppressive childhood scripture. This was one singular pixel that I saw, in your cornea, beneath the fog of Xanex and Abilify and Ambien. And still we couldn't find your car keys. A white Mercedes, crooked in an empty lot outside an aged motel under new management.
Hours before this vision, we waited, some standing, some sitting, waiting to know how much damage you had done. A man streamed in, yelling, carrying a frail woman; she was convulsing, mouth foaming, no pillow to bite, all in his arms. Later someone mentioned she had been shot; maybe the seizure had something to do with that, or maybe it had nothing to do with it. There was a hole in her somewhere, an opening in her flesh, unnatural, hemorrhaging nature, unnaturally, involuntary, genetics, chance. You were a hundred feet away, kept alive by a needle and a bag, barely conscious, shaking your head, asking about your car keys, never hungry, vaguely grabbing for a blanket, tucked in by the others, and I watched you from above, a million miles above, dangling, pleading with a woman who was never there, begging her to save us both.