As I Lay Dying

(Creative writing, REALLY old one from 2011. Darker writing, found it when I was going through old material.)

———

And as I lay dying,
the sounds of the conspirators remind me
of who I was supposed to become.

It’s never too late to be who you want to be, but watching the world pass by your dying corpse, you realize there really was no purpose.

That last slash, that last pill, that little nudge… you realize all along that you made the right choice.

But the one time you wonder what it would have been like to hold on rather than back down; for that split second, a moment of the reality of what “could have been” just flashes behind your reluctant eyelids.

The knowledge that all you needed was 3 more seconds with her…and it wouldn’t be you on this end.

You would be the one standing, watching her beg for life. She would be the one asking herself what she could’ve done to change it all. She would wonder what she could have done to re-write the ending.

And that’s when you see it…you envision the blade soaring through the air and puncturing her abdomen. She screams for you to stop as you’re blinded by the rage she fed, provoked, only makes you stronger.

You kick her to the ground and she weeps. Begging for a second chance to live her life differently. Still, you can only be as merciless as she was all along.

She bred this evil monster, fueled the fire ignited once upon a time.

This version of the person she loved has been warped by all the scars and venom injected into veins once innocent.

Nothing will ever mend this brokenness created by the one lying defenseless on the ground. Slowly, as she drowns in a pool of her own blood, you watch her slip away.

Merciless and too selfish to see past your peripheral vision, you wish it was how it used to be.

But now, you’re the one down. Barely able to see past the slits in your dying eyes.

You slip into a coma.

It’s over.

You’re dead to the world, knowing that your last thoughts were nothing but vengeance.

And still…hoping that your legacy lives on…

And as she lay dying, the sounds of the conspirators reminded her of who she could have become…

MG