Positively Glorious!

You are starting to understand why people need time off to grieve, because the exhaustion you feel this morning is more than you could have imagined. It’s a dark heaviness that pulls you down to a space just a bit beneath the floor. A dark place where bones lay.

Another morning of images. The gray sky, eggs on toast, coffee, a blue robe. Snatches of moments driven by a quiet lover as she tends to everything. You stare at a spot on a piece of paper trying to remember what street you lived on when your mother said that joke and you laughed, connecting for one brief moment. Trying to remember a snapshot of time surrounded by years of isolation and anger.

The sunshine sits beside you and she says something about the homemade bread being a bit hard this time and you start to cry again. We did the best we could on that bread, you think, it’s not perfect, but we did the best we could– we did the best we knew how.

You’re sobbing now, but there are no tears this time– black-hearted people don’t deserve the relief that spills out in tears. There’s just the dark sullenness of a heart made of coal.

A hard heart that hated it’s baker.

You dress for another day in zombie land while your springtime blows warm breezes and dandelions at you. She’s saying things like “you tried so hard,” and “don’t beat yourself up,” and “I love you, you’re such a good person.” You want to believe her, you desperately need to believe her, but you can’t. The proof is there. It’s right there sitting on the table of your life like an exhibit in a murder trial.

“Your Honor, Exhibit A: The mother, found two days after she died in an empty apartment. I ask the jury, what kind of evil, twisted, black-hearted demon would allow something as horrible as this to ever happen?!”

The voice of your accuser booms in your head, slowly sounding more and more like your own voice, like your mother’s voice. The evidence is plain, yet this person sits next to you just pretending not to see it. Why? Is she just playing games with you? Why won’t she listen?! Why is she making fun of you?!

Voices. Accusers, condemners, assaulters. So many voices in your head, all pointing at your black heart, pointing at the question, this new question from the prosecution: Did you try? Did you really, actually try?

Or did you just run away… like a coward?

They’re just voices. You know they’re just voices. Everyone has them. Your mom had them. That’s when it occurs to you: She was crazy.

Your mother was crazy. She wasn’t crazy in a sort of “wow, I would never do that” sense. No, she was actually crazy. That’s why you gave up. That’s why people around her gave up, eventually.

It’s why your sister had to hide the spare key after repeatedly coming home to find a ransacked house. It’s why she eventually had to change the locks. Your mother was a disturbed person. She wasn’t as crazy as others, granted. She wasn’t as crazy as others. They didn’t break into your house to “rescue” you from the shrieking woman who’d spray painted the red words “THEY’RE COMING!” on the walls of your living room. They never had to take you away, the way they took others. But are we talking about things in comparison, or are we talking about things when they are… alone?

Witness for the defense: You’re mother was crazy, wasn’t she? And that’s why you left?

But the prosecution always wins the cases in your head. Isn’t this just more proof for the jury? She did the best she could– not perfect, certainly, but the best she knew how. And if she was actually, clinically, “should be on some kind of medication”- crazy, doesn’t that mean that others were responsible for making sure she got help? Doesn’t that mean you should have made sure she got the medication- because she couldn’t do it herself? Doesn’t that mean that you should have been there to take care of her?

“Your Honor, I have no more questions for the defendant.”

The judge speaks: “We will take an 8-hour recess while the defendant puts on his zombie coat, goes to zombie work, and tries like hell not to scream at the top of his lungs and crawl out of his fucking skin. The court is adjourned.”

You head to work, a calming, quiet place, where you ask yourself normal, everyday work-like questions. They are questions like “I wonder if my car can get through the wall of the building before the engine breaks down?” and “Can I actually give myself a paper cut deep enough to hit a major artery?” and “What would really happen if I pissed in the corner of my office?”

After enough of those questions, none of which you answer, you go home. There you do whatever you can to convince yourself that you are still sane. You pour yourself a glass of water and don’t throw it through the window. You cook yourself dinner and don’t place your head on the hot burner. At the end of the night, when you are still alive and not lying in a hospital bed wrapped up like a schizophrenic mummy, you begin to believe that you just might be sane after all.

Remember, you said “might.”

Later that night, the prosecution shows the jury letter after letter, proof after of proof, that conviction is the only option. Words written, words spoken. Friends and family who give their condolences. They describe your mother using words like “kind,” “loving,” and “big-hearted.” They are all glowing with remembrances. “She was such a wonderful person” they say to you. They speak these words to you as if to comfort you.

But they don’t comfort you. Oh no. They poke you. They press you. They condemn you. There is no comfort for the black-hearted. Each word of praise is a bar on the prison gate of your soul. They loved her, everyone loved her. Everyone, that is, but you. She was perfect. She was wonderful.

“I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“I’m so sorry that you are such an evil person and allowed this to happen.”

“Who, I ask you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, would condemn such a beautiful soul to a life of loneliness and despair? Who but the most vile, base, cruel filth that ever tried to call itself human?!”

You know the answer, don’t you?

“Your Honor, the prosecution rests.”

Lying in darkness, after the jury of your mind pronounce their verdict, you see it. From the inky shadows under the bed creeps the shape of the monster, grasping forward with it’s blood-soaked claw, reaching for your heart.

This time, however, you’re ready. You draw in your breath, you clutch the monsters face, and shriek. You shriek! You shriek and you shriek and you shriek!

“Fuck you, monster! Fuck you! I’m the black-heart! Fuck you! I’m the murderer! Fuck you! I’m the monster!!!”

You scream until you can’t breath, then you fall asleep crying, knowing that your mother won’t come. She never came. You fall asleep crying, knowing that your monster won’t come. You, my friend, are the monster.

You fall asleep crying, and even though you hear the quiet, deep, slow breath next to you, you still feel alone.

You are alone.

You are alone.

You are alone.