I’m glad I got to see you

Such sincerity

She meant it

Her eyes said she loved me

Her eyes said she’d suffered

Her eyes wouldn’t stop talking.

 

In pettiness, I find grief, not just for her. I know I’m something more than wrong, I’m something worse than weak. I don’t think she notices. Maybe she pretends not to hear my burning voice scorching her lifeblood. Maybe she sees that I suffer, too, but I think that’s a self-serving thought, like all of my thoughts.

My aunt is back in the hospital and as usual, it looks dire. Before I saw her, I was telling people, nonchalantly, as if I didn’t care, that she can’t possibly live much longer, that her body can only take so much. She has blue-gray eyes and she was so glad to see me.

So I ruefully weep for her, that she was glad to see me. What’s worse: even if she saw me and my true self, the one that’s angry and put-out, she’d still look at me with those blue-gray eyes and say I’m glad I got to see you.