Bottle.

  The window let’s in the sun’s light, it’s almost an attempt to show him that life will go on. He squints at the blinding light, and pulls the blinds down. Nothing has been the same since that night. It’s been years, but he won’t leave the moment. Time around him races, but his world stands at a halt. He’s never been so devastated. He can’t sleep, because she’s in his dreams. He puts the bottle to his lips and the bitter whiskey kisses them. The taste is so familiar to him now. He hasn’t eaten in a week. He’s a wreck. He keeps his door locked, and the key to heart is now gone. Combing his hair back, he closes his eyes, and he fades away to brighter days…

 They’re sitting on the front porch, watching the sunset, and he combs her honey brown hair out of her face. She touches her belly and says to him, “Let’s name her Ally.” He smiles and says, “That’s a beautiful name, sweetheart.” They kissed and then he comes back to reality and lets the tears flood the room once again. They shatter to pieces on the crushed beer cans, all so similar to the way that his heart has become a cold, distant place. He isn’t alive anymore…

 As he sits in the hot shower water, he fades out of reality once again, back to the day that he can’t let go of. The day that she and the baby died… It comes in flashes, and he can feel his weak heart sink lower into chest as he watches her lips mouth, “I’ll see you soon, I love you…” Her voice was lost in the sounds of sirens, and her face was painted with splashes of shades of red, white, and blue. He holds her head in his arms, he combs her honey brown hair out of her face, and he kisses her stale lips. His tears slide down and soak into her dying skin. He glances off at the wreckage, seeing nothing, but what has destroyed his life. What came to him in a beautiful package was lost to the slippery asphalt…

 He can’t let the light in, because she was his sunshine. He can’t let life in, because she was his breath. He can’t forget, because she was his entire world. He can’t go on this way. Something has to give, but he stands tall, and takes another swig from that bottle. He’ll drink it all away so he can get some sleep. He’ll drink away, from the bottle that she was drinking from that night.

Katie Perner

7.3.11. <3