Brown Bird XXVI

An old guy in the neighborhood asked me today how old you were. I tried to answer him. God I tired. All that came out was, “She died last week.” I couldn’t even look at him. It was me who felt it most, felt him trip and stumble into a place he didn’t belong. “She…uh…,” was all I muster after that. My voice cracked and I turned away from him, just waving a hand and beginning to walk away. He just stood there. I caught a nod in the corner of my eye through my hair, looking over my shoulder at the ground, and choking, I said, “Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude…but I can’t…” He was nice enough, “No, I get it,” he said. He definitively doesn’t. He doesn’t know detoxing with just you, he doesn’t know the job, he doesn’t know the partnership, he doesn’t know the storms, he doesn’t know the long nights on concrete, he doesn’t know the long nights in the car, he doesn’t know holding wounds shut with his hands trying to drive a manual at the same time and can’t see the road through the tears…he doesn’t know the anguish of going hungry to pay for doctor bills and your food because we could only afford two of the three—for years. If there was anything in the world he didn’t get…it was this—whatever this is. Who I was, has been ripped in two. It’s the same shit that everyone says, “give it time,” “it’ll get better.” People prove to me on a daily basis just how much they definitely, don’t fucking get it. Nothing pisses me off quiet so much as, “I get it.” I walked away without saying a word, I’m know it’s wasted breath. I walked away.