Time for a New Priority

Yes, yes— I know. I don't have time to brush my hair though. I don't have time to take care of myself. I'm too busy taking care of everyone else— even though no one asked me to. I know it's needed, I can see it, I can feel it. It's a fear that's so deeply seated: the fear that I'm going to be left all alone, so I might as well take care of the people I love, while they still pick up the phone. When they see my number on the screen, do they see the pain? Do they see the lies I tell when I say, "I'm okay?" Can they see through the bullshit? Can they tell I'm breaking down? I guess not, because no one is around. No one is asking, no one is helping, no one can see that I'm being slain my own thoughts; no one is interested in my pain. Or maybe they are. Maybe it's because I hide myself away. I just don't know, my head is my enemy, I don't know what to think because my brain keeps betraying me. It's telling me the end is near, that I should lay down and give up, but my heart is still fighting. But for what, FOR WHAT? For the father who disappeared? For everything that I lost? For the anxiety, the anger, the apathy, the grief? The grief that I felt when my best friend left me. The grief I felt as I lifted his lifeless body from the rope and released him from the grip of the tree? Everyone knows, they all heard the story. Everyone can see the discomfort dripping off of my being; everyone is studying me like I'm in a laboratory. But no one, not one person, can see the guilt. No one knows that the only one I blame is me. No one knows that he was the only one who stopped me from demolishing my own body, the only reason I had a fight left in me. All the while I never saw the agony festering inside his own walking corpse. How could I be so dense? How did I not recognize the same suffering, which was inside of me? Well now it's too late; there's no point in trying. It's too late to wonder what I could have done, said or offered. It's too late for regrets, because he's already gone. So now here I am, taking care of everyone else while I still can. Because maybe that will make up for all the times he cried and I told him someone else's problems were worse. Maybe it will make up for that time when he called, but I ignored the ringtone because I was bitter: bitter he didn't have the time to listen to me, bitter he didn't come to my rescue when I was at the end of me. All the while, he was sitting on his bathroom floor, trying to figure out what he had to live for anymore, when all he had left was me. Coincidentally "me" was the only one I had time for. So maybe if I put others on the top-shelf, maybe if I deny the care of myself, maybe if I spend every waking moment trying to live for everyone else, then just maybe, he'll forgive me. Maybe he'll see. Maybe he'll be watching. Maybe he'll reach out to me, though he has no body. Maybe I'll finally be at peace. Maybe I'll be able to forgive myself, and maybe I'll stop wishing that the corpse in the tree was someone else. Maybe I'll stop wishing that it was me.