It takes time and loneliness to make me realize how I had once
made my girlfriend feel unappreciated and lonely.
the next night,
while she was leaving from her friend’s house,
probably complaining about how awful I had been,
on the road to Amesville, Ohio, she steered her car
head on into an on-coming truck. I identified her uniform, getting a visceral feeling.
Not because of her damaged features
that I had once admired,
but because I was the cause. I was the one who told her that I wasn’t
going to take care of the baby. I was the one who was responsible, yet
I backed out. What I exactly had said to her was too harsh and draconian
for words. You have my permission to hate me, since I even
hate myself for it,
writing her name on every wall of our was-to-be future home,
savagely clawing the wall, trying to bring her back. The wall slaps me,
snapping me back. The furniture
that I had once held her as she slept
mocks me, laughing, calling out to one another, What a fool he is to have
left her.
Her smile appears on everything, even this paper, on the wall, furniture,
TV, kitchen counter, my head. She’s gone. Forever. Because of me.
It takes time and loneliness for a human to become the animal he really is.
