The doors

i still speak our language.  mostly to the dog.  mispronouncing words the way we always did, kill becoming kile.. a sound effect before peeing.. all sorts of subtle and odd changes to an otherwise mundane english language.  we made it our own.  we made everything our own.  i have tried this language out on friends but they miss the changes or they are only hearing every seventh word or they have to hang up because they're getting another call.  but like i said i speak it mostly to the dog.  her ears twitch at my every word.  sometimes i say your name to her and she looks hopefully at the door.  i do that for myself and i know it is so selfish but for three easy seconds she believes that you are coming through that door and for those three seconds i believe too and i feel light and safe knowing that you are coming home.  then we are distracted by september 23 2009..  a neighbor walking their own dog, a leaf blower, a shout from the tennis courts..  and we are back in the moment.  

i am not the same person now.  and i don't know where the girl i was went.  the girl who changed the dressings on your wound when you broke your leg, the girl who wanted to be buried in her wedding dress, the girl who was obsessed with your profile, the girl who lay on your chest.  she's gone.  you're gone. we have become other people.  i was once yours.  now i am my own.  that sounds so strong to me as i write it but i want to write it for someone else, not me.  it makes me desperate and scared.  my own?  i can't keep a plant alive, how will i take care of myself.  but i do.  somehow i wake up every morning and find my glasses in the covers and boil water to make my instant coffee and take my medicine and wait for the grizzly back pain to dull..  i take mabel outside to pee and try to determine my mood based on the weather.  

i am the same person as much as i am not.  our language has become my language.  you are only across town.  you go home to yourself now.  as i walk hopefully through my own door.  to our dog.  who looks for you when i say your name but who is helplessly in the moment and when suddenly remembering her stuffed toy, gallops off to attack.