.death lingers.

It will swallow you whole. Control the thoughts you think and it’s the death that lingers in every breath.

I see them in you. I see you walking like them and breathing like them and I don’t know how to save you, I don’t. Just like them, I don’t know how to stop you. And that is where I fall. You are taking us out at the knees. You are crippling us. Our breath, we no longer are able to breathe; beneath your actions our hearts, they are breaking. I get that you don’t understand. You are destroying who you are and who you could become. Every bit of you being cut out piece by piece; no longer whole enough to feel the heart beating beneath your ribs there within your chest.

I mean you’re angry. You can’t seem to deal with it. You’re eyes reveal what you try to hide.

And I wont let go. [I beg for you to just hold on.] Remember when we were little? Remembering all of it, these tears are burning and I am broken because I see your little face, your little hands, blond hair and blue eyes full of fire and mischief. How can I not hold on to you? How can I not? I mean do I have to go through it again? Because I will. I would lay my life down for you, just so that you could find your own. I would give it all to see you smile and see joy sparkle again in those blue eyes. He is him and you are you, but somehow you are melding together and I keep thinking of it. I keep thinking of the nights with him and I don’t want you to go there too. I don’t want to lose you beneath the smoky pipes, the needles and the bottles. I don’t want you to start to fade. A hologram upon the white wall. And imaginary person who appears and disappears. With no one and nothing to hold to.

Hold on. Hold strong. I will hold to you and never let go.

Frightened by the anger that appears like fiery flames, engulfing your whole person, shaking and my bones seem to shatter with in my skin beneath the pain of all of it. It is not a product of you. Its not a product of your heart. Your heart is broken beneath the worthlessness that consumes you and the fear that eats at the insides of you. Its moving through your whole body from head to toe. Burrowing deep, deep, deep. And you don’t know how to love you. You don’t know how to trust you. You don’t know because you fear it. You fear your thoughts and the future the waits in the distance and you don’t think you can make it.

I know your strength. Every ounce of every piece of you can be released from this. And I think about your little baby face when they brought you home and I can’t let go. I can’t. For you I will hold on forever.

Forever and ever. From this to that, moments that pile upon moments, I will never ever turn my back.