Epilogue

Once upon a time
No, no. I can't begin like that
That's how beautiful stories start
The kind you tell children before bed

I know where you are
You're in my mind
You won't leave, will you?
You can't, can you?
You're like a shadow that follows me
An echo in a tunnel that never fades

But I want you gone
Go
Leave me again, it shouldn't be hard
Just take another path, you've done it before
Leave me!

I could start the story like in children's books
Once upon a time
But I don't know how to do it
You weren't there to teach me
You never read me bedtime stories
Never tucked me in
All I know is that they start like that
And then? Once upon a time what?

There's nothing, only emptiness
A black hole that consumes everything around it

I remember your photos
The only things I have left of you
I look at them as if they're clues
To a crime I never managed to solve
In one of them, you're smiling
A smile I don't recognize
As it belongs to another life, another person

Were you really happy?
Or was it just for the camera?
Why did you leave?
Why?

The why stage has lasted my whole life
I've never outgrown it
I'm still just a five-year-old child
Lost in an endless corridor of unanswered questions

I wonder, did you ever think of me?
Did you?

You're the sound of a broken clock
Always marking the same second
You're so present in my mind
That sometimes I feel you can hear my thoughts
You linger in my memory, repeating over and over
You're like the decayed skin of a snake
That has to be shed for it to grow
I don't want you here
Go!

But you won't
You never do
You're a wound that won't heal
A thorn buried deep
I know it's your fault
My life, my father's end, everything
He died in the same emptiness you left
He drank until he felt nothing
Until he was utterly lost
Sometimes I think he taught me a lesson
Alcohol is an escape
But it doesn't work
I've tried

It's your fault
Always yours
But it's mine too, isn't it?
Because I let you stay here, inside me

Today, once again, the thought crept in
Silence. Peace. The end
Wouldn't it be easier?
Wouldn't it be fair?
To take this pain, this emptiness, and erase it forever?
To put an end to all the whys, to your voice in my head

At the same time, there's something in me
That won't let me
I don't know if it's anger or stubbornness
But I'm still here
I'm still breathing
Maybe it's because I'm afraid of proving you right
Maybe because if I walk through that door, you win

Happily ever after
No
My story doesn't end like that
Not yet