Where Do You Bury The Survivors

It's like that joke about the plane crashing on the border of two states. Where do you bury the survivors, it goes, you wouldn't have gotten it--jokes were never quite your thing. But you don't bury the survivors, and that's it. That's the punchline.

It's been a long time since he last saw you and your image starts to fade. There's that sense of obligation that he can't shake with alcohol, or revenge. (Trust him, he's tried.) It makes him feel sick to his stomach. If he can't remember you, who will? It's an endless circle. He'd name cities after you, he'd burn them all down. The feeling never goes away, it lives, you die.

Sometimes, on good nights, the nightmares can't touch you. You're a sopping wet mess of heroics. You always come back, you always make it, you always drag yourself out of the water. (Were your eyes that blue? Or something more vibrant? He can't seem to remember anymore.) Sometimes, it's enough. Most times, it isn't, because you may always be the savoir, but he always has to wake up.

He's tried to drown you out with sex, and alcohol, with gun shots, and family. You're all water logged now, but still gone, still dead. Where do you bury the survivors: you don't until you have to.

You bury them somewhere close to home.