Neighbours

Last year as the snow hit the ground, she looked like me: round, plump, healthy. All the while, she fought the demons within her or rather, she hid them well. She is now stick thin. Her movements, a staccato melody. She walks quickly as if she's trying to get over in more ways than one.

She says that she can talk to me freely. She can tell in my eyes there is no judgment and that unlike my mom, I don't make her cry. I can not bear to tell her that I judge not because I think she is lost dancing to the rhythm the syringe plays as she jabs it into her arms daily. I see her for what she is, an addict.

But he loves her. Flesh of her flesh, she birthed him into this world and he will not accept the tombstone she inscribes her name into on the daily. Valiantly, he fights for her. He wrestles with the demons surrounding her as he tries to pierce the darkness that encompasses her.

And I love him for that. How cliche is it to have had this crush on the boy next door since '98. Although a decade plus has gone by, I still pine for him like I did in high school. Mind racing, butterflies fluttering at a quick hello, a rushed goodbye. He is my eternal dreamboat.

Yet, I feel like I am an untouchable. A dating parriah; it is a fate I can not escape. But, I wish for things to be different.

I think about the day her life will come to an end. Who will pick up the pieces of his shattered life? Who will hold him as he cries for a mother he lost in the Winter? I want it to be me. But can I give that? I owe him as much of me as I can muster. I fear it is not enough.

I have impeccable timing.
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