snakes in the grass

darling, how can i explain to you?

i am not afraid of death. i do not feel as others do, the jerk of near deaths passing me by. all i have ever felt is glad that it was only near.

perhaps it is naive of me to say so: i, who have never been anywhere nearer real human death than the corpses of one grandfather i never met and another i barely knew.

it is only that i have seen the people who are left behind, and it is they who evoke my sympathy and pain and understanding. it is harder to be the one who doesn't move on.

i do worry. i do freak out. i worry that you will leave, while still alive; that all my shenanigans will not prove appealing enough to your wandering spirit. i fear i will lose you. (i, not you. i will lose.)

for all that i love you, my darling, almost all my concerns are purely selfish. how startling the thought! it makes me at once both ashamed and proud.