I Can’t Go Back

I am afraid. I don’t know what I’m afraid of. I’m depressed. I don’t know what I’m depressed about. My house (not OUR house any more,) is a wreck. I watch too much TV and don’t recall what I’ve seen. I make plans to go outside, head for the door, and stop before I get there, sit back down, and watch more TV I don’t see. I yearn for you, but I can’t be around people. I adapted to life in a combat zone by telling myself each morning that today is a good day to die, but that doesn’t work now. Today is a lousy day and I’m okay with being dead, but Death won’t show up. Death is probably vacationing on some f#%ing beach where he’s trying out his brand-new surfboard, and he’s too busy having fun to bother showing up in my worthless world to kill me. I could have stood when Tex lost control of his Thompson instead of diving for cover – then I would have avoided living long enough to learn how to love again just so I could lose you and feel how much pain losing you causes beyond the pain I felt losing Tex. He could have stitched me with .45 rounds so I avoided reclaiming love after I whispered to myself that Tex was a little jerk for getting himself dead, so to heck with him and every sailor, Marine, grunt, and Vietnamese I saw zapped, burned, shot, blown up, cut to pieces, because that’s how I survived my war – by telling myself about each dead human that they made stupid mistakes and caused their own death, but I wouldn’t let that happen. I’d be behind cover when the sniper round addressed to me flew past or smacked into the fantail winch; I’d never care one small bit about anyone else dying – they could mess up and get dead all they wanted and I wouldn’t care if they burned in napalm or got cut in half by a .51cal round – tough deal. Too bad you got killed and floated past me on the river – you’re dead and bloated and I’m alive, so you messed up. I won’t make the same mistakes you did and I won’t bloat and float so to heck with you, dead guy. Then came you, Kathy, and I stayed alive in front of you and you asked me what was wrong when I ate dirt on hearing a fireworks mortar go ‘foomp,’ and you not only knew something was wrong, but you made it safe for me to remember, and I love you and Oh, God, it hurts so bad to still love you when you’re a year and-a-half gone. You helped me love again; you helped me drop those walls that said f$#k you for dying, and I love you and learned to love Tex and even love the floater because you were so good and kind that my hard shell cracked and you loved me through learning to love you and I learned the human beauty of us who struggled to survive and accepted our deaths as I did and treated the deaths of others like I did… If I could, I’d go back to being the hardened SOB who told them bleep you for dying, because you, Kathy taught me love, and the pain of your loss is so great that I just want to be able to say the things I used to say and think about death being just a click, just a bullet with someone else’s address on it, just a short shower in burning jellied gasoline, and I can’t because you loved me and I love you and you’re gone and this pain is too much and a piece of me knows that the pain is the same for all the death I saw in country and Jesus, that’s a lot of pain and it’s too crazy much to bear such pain from your death, Kathy. You’re gone. You’re gone a year and a half. And I still love you. I am still empty but your love is with me and I can’t go back to saying eff ‘em for dying. Our love is still here, so maybe the guy on the beach who rolled in the sand to put himself out wasn’t burned too badly. Maybe he lived. Maybe the floater died quickly without pain. Maybe Tex was only conscious for the two seconds it took for him to be sucked into the ship’s screws… And this, Kathy, is because you helped me relearn love, and oh God, I love you, and oh, my love, it hurts to love you when you’re gone. I did a little housework after I wrote this today, sweetie. Maybe I’ll live.