I want to save someone, someday. To be the willpower he lacked.

I want to have an enormous, vile yelling match, where things are thrown but thankfully not broken, and to scramble to find some perfect emotional move to defuse the tension and transition into catharsis.

I want to cringe as the cold sweat from his shirt seeps into mine and gets me wet; and though it's more than a little uncomfortable, I stay, holding his head up against my chest, cooing and patting his greasy hair and hugging him close through the tremors.

I want to walk through the city streets, see some young brat climb into the back of a sedan with tinted windows that isn't driving anywhere, and then to scrutinize the expression on his face, to gauge whether he saw it too, and whether he's pretending he didn't.

I want to sit out in a sunny field, overtop of a picnic blanket, tracing my fingers along the scars lining his forearms as he lies and gazes into the sky.

I want to sit on a bench out in the park, and see a mother pushing a stroller, avoiding us not because we look like drug users, but because we look happy and deserve a little time together, undisturbed.

I want to look into his weary eyes and see them smiling.

 

I never got to meet him. He died last year, alone. I found out fourthhand—you always hear about six degrees but you never really think about what the detours look like.

Of all the reasons this terrible fantasy was never meant to be, I didn't think it would be this one.

Anyway, there's no point in talking about it, I'm totally over it. I've moved on. The other reasons don't matter anymore, I can just forget them.