Martyr

One thing happens, then the next. For a long, long time

I belong here. But not him, this boy, not his cathedral hands.

What was there to complain about? A murdered wife? A sore back? The wrong grade copper? Living happened till it didn’t. There was no choice in it. To say no to a new day would be unthinkable. So each morning you said yes, then stepped into the consequence.

Immortal soul sick with desire and fastened to a dying animal

“Now we definitely get to lick more squares when we get home,” Cyrus said, grinning.

I squeezed his calf a little and looked up at his face, which was unaccountably calm, if pale. He looked chipper even, probably at having a new excuse to take more fentanyl. Something delicate released in my chest, like a gold ring dropping in a bowl of milk.

He could probably get away with bumming the occasional cigarette now and again, but in his mind he was saving that for something momentous: his final moments lying in the grass dying from a gunshot wound, or walking in slow motion away from a burning building

like a tongue in a mouth between bites

“I don’t even know what my higher power is.”

“That didn’t stop you from getting on your knees with me a year ago and asking it to remove your suffering.”

“Asking what?” Cyrus asked. “What were we even talking to?”

“Who cares?” Gabe answered. “To not-your-own-massive-fucking-ego. That’s the only part that matters.”

“ ‘Living the poems you’re not writing?’ ” Zee scoffed. “C’mon, you’re better than that.”

“I’m really not,” Cyrus said, sharply, before stepping out the apartment door.

“You know, Mrs. Kaufmann, it’s entirely possible, common even, to have psychological co-morbidities. It sounds like you’ve been getting help for addiction issues, which is great. But you may also have another diagnosis alongside it that’s going untreated, an anxiety disorder or major depression or something else. It could be useful for you to seek help for those as well.”