.
Your memory is all around me, I can't escape it. I hear your voice and your laugh when there is no sound; I can feel your smile from other people's faces.
And the world feels still and I'm stuck to the ground in one place, frozen moments that stretch into days, but time hasn't stopped.
Every other day disappears. I forget things, I show up late. I hope to wake up and feel like being again, but I can't do it. You wouldn't have wanted this; you would be frustrated with me. But you're not here to be.
Sometimes I forget the finality of it, and then the smell of that room fills me and my heart feels like it’s falling apart into a million pieces and they jab all my other organs on their way to the ground. And there’s clear blood and tears mixed together on the floor, flooding up to my ankles. And I slip on the slickness and my face goes under and I’m drowning. I’m drowning and I don’t mean to be, it just happens.
And I’m stuck inside this box that’s filling up with fatal liquid and the world keeps spinning around outside my captive case, like the mirrors you can see out of, but no one can see in. I can't even see my own reflection in the pane glass windows of yesterday's town. I’m not screaming, I’m whispering softly, gurgling in the rising tide.