Entangled

by Harleigh Beck

That’s the thing about grief—it alienates you from others. It’s a disease. Once it digs its claws into you, everyone else gives you a wide berth.

“You’re not dealing well with Chloe’s disappearance.” Her bitter, drunken laughter fills the room as she falls back against the cushions. She pins me with her eyes. “Is grief linear? Is it okay to almost drink yourself to death for a few months, provided you get your shit together after,” she makes quotation marks, “‘an agreeable amount of time’ has passed?”

There’s nothing sweet or gentle about this union. We’re not in love. We barely even like each other. This is two lost souls soaking up each other’s pain.

I don’t want to be good and make the right decisions. I want to self-destruct and externalize this inner pain, this darkness that has its claws in me.

I’ve already crossed the line. And the monster inside me is growing restless, pacing in its cage. It’s time to let him out.

I want to possess her, own every part of her until she doesn’t know where she begins and I end.