ghosts

she was trying to speak to me with her eyes as she lay there dying.  words were beyond her now, but she clung to her body a while longer, trying to share her final hard won truths with me: what it had all been about. she watched me with kindness and a sense of levitation, she in her wrecked self, and all i could do was look at her and cry.  i could not bring myself to touch her or offer her comfort; she had always been comforter to me.  a prickle at the back of my neck whispered of things unseen, but i was unable to grasp the meaning of the bargain she had struck. she was purchasing my freedom and hers with this death, and that’s why she kept smiling. the sentence was a blessing; to be relieved of her heavy burden of these many years, bliss. i believe i freed her of blame also. she had asked me to, after all. i didn’t yet know what for, but there in the fragile, fecund moment, i forgave her everything and became something else. it wasn’t long after that she released her hold on the shell of her body, and glided gently beyond me.