NARCAN

I knew somewhere in the recesses of my mind that those were sirens.

But to me, each screeching wail was like a shot to my chest, the aching hollow thing my knees were drawn up tight into.  the delicate skin grew raw from heaving against an immobile wall of denim for God knows how long.

A young, baby-faced cop had knelt in front of me, stammering his laundry list of questions.  He was wet behind the ears and his green was showing, and my unresponsiveness only sent him further into awkward shyness but manners had escaped me at that particular moment. 

I was busy watching blue gloved hands roam her stretched out body, extend her arms, poke and prod that skin, that luscious silk that used to set me on fire. 

I wanted to sweep them aside and lay on top of her, I wanted to protect her fragile pride and maintain the strict physical barrier that she broke only for me.  The daggers from my eyes dulled significantly from having to break through a thick, blank stare.

"THAT'S MINE!" my thoughts screamed savagely.  "THAT'S MINE, IT'S MINE, THAT'S FUCKING MINE!"

Instead I caught my tongue between my teeth and bit down until I tasted a flood of rusty brine.

The calloused brute cupped her chin and tilted her face away from him, towards me.  She still looked absolutely perfect.  But when the tip of his stupid fumbling finger grazed the outside of her beestung mouth a squawk fled my throat and flapped away without my permission.

"She doesn't like to be touched!"  I was begging him, more than anything.

He looked up at me briefly and continued his inspection.

Her skin was like pallid rose petals and I swear I could see the clumsy fingerprints he left, dirty little bruises as proof of his invasion.  The more he handled her the more she started to look like bruised, old fruit.

I could see it in his eyes, that look I had met daily in my prison by the lake.  He raised one cynical brow, a little jerking motion upwards that said, "Just another overdose."

My inner voice screamed again, emphasizing each syllable like an impetuous child.

"SHE'S NOT A DRUGGIE, YOU SIMPLE FUCK!" I berated him.  "SHE'S THE DRUG, SHE'S THE DRUG!"

Somewhere in my hysterics, they had all filed out and I've been alone ever since.  However long that's been. 

With Imogene gone, really truly gone, I lived my life in stop motion.  In strobe light.  Every action a pose for a tragic, poignant still.

Oh...

The conditioning I had put myself through in the months leading up to now all fell to the wayside.  I slid closer and closer to the shadow of my old self, and I eventually began to slip through the cracks of it.

I wanted to slip through the cracks of the world to escape the cracks in my heart.

I wanted her back. 

Imogene, Imogene, my beginning, my end.

For some strange reason, I thought about the little side table we'd hover over together, cross-legged and smiling.  We drank and laughed as we let sobriety and the night and our clothes fall away.

I remembered how we used to lay on our backs, eyes closed tight and clinging to each other to combat the spinning of the room and whisper our promises again and again.  Now that I think of it, I don't really seem to recall her promising much of anything. 

But me... I promised the world. Several worlds, in fact.

I promised my flesh and bones, brittle though they were.  I promised my blood, the toxic sludge.

I promised to follow her from this life to the next and the next and the one after that.  I promised to find her again, in every form we might exist.  In every life. 

I'm pretty sure she at least promised to be found.

But now that she's gone all I find is that I'm a flip book of devastation.  Frame by frame by page by still of sad, sloppy heartbreak.

Me staring vacantly into the mirror.

Snap. (Flip.)

Me standing lonely at the foot of our bed.

Snap.  (Flip.)

Me with a belt between my teeth.

Snap.  (Flip.)

Me, unconscious with my chin to my chest.

Snap.  (Flip.)

It drives me crazy that I can't even say I miss her.  Because really, when half your limbs are ripped from your body, you don't fucking MISS them.  You grieve them, you mourn them.  You curse the motherfucker who took them from you and you loathe the sorry motherfucker you've become.  Fucking worthless.

Sometimes I sit in silence so long my heartbeat is deafening.

Sometimes I scream at nothing so long I forget I'm doing it.

Sometimes...

Sometimes I wish I had fed us both to that vulture after all.

As soon as I can gather enough breath to hold it, I'm going to go find her.

My beginning, my end.

My want, my wish, my world, my everything, MINE.