Reversal

Walking back home without you made me want to run back and stay with you in that hospital. It made me want to run back and take you out of there and kiss you like the world was ending.

Your kisses always turned my insides upside down. And your smile, the way your lips curved would made a small dimple just above your mouth. Your eyes used to light up when I took you bowling. You said that you loved 'the rush'.

I never knew what you meant.

You spent your Saturday mornings in those fraying blue socks of yours, coffee cup in hand. I just watched you, chuckling at the coffee stains that you tried to hide.

But one day you came home not yourself. And you've never gone back. You stopped eating. I saw you, when you thought I wasn't looking, giving your meal away to the dog or 'accidentally' dropping it.

You just got skinnier and skinnier. I was worried. We saw a doctor, but he referred you to another one. You often lied to the doctor saying you ate when you didn't. I corrected you and that always led to a long fight. And you just got skinnier and skinnier.

Then came the mysterious cuts. How you could tear apart something so beautiful, I will never know. You said you cut yourself while cooking. But the cuts were too far down your arm for me to believe you.

Then one day, the world seemed like it was ending with the way you went on about everything. Anxiety, no doubt.

But the real kicker was when you said that you almost killed yourself last night. You said you couldn't take it, you said that you hated me, you said that you hated yourself.

You showed me the bloodied knife, and the hangman's noose. I cried for three hours after you fell asleep in my arms. Baby, I had whispered, don't. Please don't, I love you like I've never loved before.

I still love you and when you get better we'll be together. Until then, I will live half alive.