i wish

t,

No one told me, the first time, what had happened.

Instead I was nine and sitting on the foot of your hospital bed, knowing something was wrong. But god, we had been through so much by then, hadn’t we? You were fourteen but you looked so much older, washed out on those white sheets, and I didn’t want to know what happened. The gauze on your wrists tickled my face when you brushed my hair back, and I just wanted to go home.

You didn't tell me what you had done.

Instead, you got me high, seven years later, smoking pot. And your daughter is asleep across the hall, eighteen months old, and this is a bad decision but we’re making it anyways, because she’s already fucked by genetics, a little weed’s not gonna make it any worse. You told me about it, about how much it hurt and how much it wasn’t worth.

Do you remember? The picture in Delilah’s room, above her crib: You and me in black clothes. I’m young enough to still be blond, your hair is bleached white and cropped. Our sister is blurry in the background, walking with her head down and our grandmother’s necklace swinging.

I hope you know I didn’t scream, that last day.

So I’m sorry, for whatever I did. I loved you, and I wish that I didn’t have your birthday tattooed on my wrist like a monument, I wish I didn't have your blood splattered on the hem of my old shirt, I wish your daughter never saw, I wish life hadn't been such a bitch to us, I wish you had made it.

For what it's worth: I love you.

- z