5 a.m.

"marching in a slow parade
there are ashes where you laid
and sometimes i don't mind at all
and sometimes head against the wall" ~ A.A. Bondy

It has been a while since I couldn't sleep for terror.  This is my life? Everything I've loved shattered, my very identity destroyed, and the pain, the pain and the guilt.  You deceived me so well.  Why did I let myself be deceived? I had warnings, I had chances - I should have been a despot, I should have raged, not been complicit in your self-destruction.  You were right about me.  I lived in denial.  You told me explicitly and yet I continued for another three weeks.  Until it was too late.

You must have had a scare to talk like that.  I warned you about taking things to sleep, but I should have flown over there and yanked them from your hands and yanked you out of there and held you while I could.  You were a big man, but you were still my baby.  I should have held you.  I didn't use my own power.  I let you go.  How can I live with that?  How can I sleep?  Who am I if not your mother?