Regret

The tears splay down my face,

Stain. Burn. Fester.

The result of the awful days and long nights

I ask myself, is this what was supposed to happen?

Does everyone hurt this way?

“Sometimes”

He answers me

He says, “Will you be okay eventually?”
At the moment, I just don’t know. Will I be okay?

Good question.

I close my eyes

The images are burned on the back of my eyelids

The blood, the sadness, the slight insanity in my mother’s eyes

A car, flipped. Another crunched between others, madness in every direction

Stretchers sat waiting

Others wheeled away, lumpy bodies covered in perfect white sheets

People in uniforms walking through the crowd- some running, yelling, whispering

Blankets around survivors

The feeling of the cold curb under my butt, numbing away some of the pain

Bodies dragged out of wreckages, explosions

Crying beyond me because everything I had to lose was already gone.

Some time before

The eyes of my brother next to me in his blue beater, flipped upside down

Hanging from our seatbelts

I watched as he looked at me with those shining blue eyes,

Blood masking his perfect face, the steering wheel pushing against his chest

I had pulled as hard as my arms could muster, doing nothing

He grimaced at me, though he couldn’t speak

I knew what he wanted to say

And then he passed, with my arms as far around him as I could muster

And I knew that I just wanted to die with him

Let this be my day, I had said

I pleaded to Him like I had never before

“You have more life to live”

I heard it in the back of my mind, thinking it was God

But then it occurred to me that it was him, my brother, my best friend, my savior

And as they pulled me out of the crushed car, I felt him next to me

A light

Although he wasn’t here, he was here

He wouldn’t leave me like that

Was I going to be okay?

“Without a doubt.”