Too late

I have some things to tell you. I know you'd come right here and hug me tight, tell me what to do. Make me do them. Supervise me, but funly. Rent dumb movies. Hug me tight. Pure friend. Not wanting anything from me, but wanting friendship. We'd giggle. I wouldn't get irritated when you seemed different. The days you'd spend in pajamas, on the couch, ignoring the dishes. I understand now. I understand it all and it's impossibly late. That time we were in your room, teenagers still, you left, to make drinks, lying on your bed, us three girls, waiting for you. Being so silly that day, and I picked up your diary. And then I started reading from it, I didn't even see the words, not a word. Mimicing a dramatic voice, I was so ignorant. No concept of what it could contain, until you opened the door and I saw your face. That was a terrible moment. I knew I had come close to something big, monsters I didn't know existed- could exist- for anyone.

You thought I knew more than I did. But if I did, I couldn't recognize it. That was my first glimpse in. The moment that echoed on, never forgotten, not even pretending to laugh as you reminded me. You held that close, the betrayal. I tried to explain then, but I couldn't just as I can't now. Hyped and ditsy, we flopped around your bedroom, bored. I expected shopping lists and dentist appointments, not darkness, tranferred to biro, safely filed into somewhere innocuous, external. I understand now. That's how I smile. By writing out the shadows, the yellow hall light fingers in, a stripe just wide enough to keep your head above the blankets. Just enough to not thread gas to your car with a rubber hose and wait in it, escaping any lucky twist of fate, just dying there, too tall for your coffin.