The Secrets That You Keep

I have wondered many times over at Ashton’s strength. When he talks in his sleep, I wanna pull a Juliet Capulet. ( Get it?)

He is not dead. When he hurts, I wish I were.

He bitches aplenty while awake, make no mistake. <I almost just busted in to a MicOne-look-I’m a White-Rapper routine. *I digress, per usual.

While he is asleep or on *Special K (one being synonymous with the other), he utters the most heartfelt, most honest things. Even while asleep and on a dissociative club drug rivaling anything Keith Richards and Mick Jagger  took in a decade, he is lucid enough to say how he feels. That’s sort of um, scary.

Sluuuuured speech: what are you giving me? leave me alone. stop it. It’s such a terribly defeated tone. It’s the tone you would expect him to have all day long, every day. He only shows his fragility when he thinks we cannot hear it in his voice.

On some level, having been HERE, in this particular hospital and inside 97 days, and in Dayton a total of 66 days, and having been sick since February, he must think this is normal? He seems resigned to this being life. He seems resigned to, not remembering the old way of life…the way of jumping in to piles of leaves in October. The way of wearing clothes. The way of standing up without help. The way of playing with friends. The way of riding a bike. The way of breathing outside. The way of not feeling pain.

I am tough on him.

I want my kid back and I want him standing and breathing so he’s gonna have to listen and move his legs and sit up. I also don’t want him to be a big jerk. I still make him use his manners even though he says he hates me.

Yesterday he was so confused, he said he wanted me to tell him I hated him. I flatly refused, naturally. This went on and on. He was bargaining and making no sense. Finally, he came up with a compromise: ok, MOM!!!! just say THIS. Say, YOU are not my mother. I said, “Fine, YOU are NOT MY mother”. He said, “Ok, then. I feel better now. NOW! Give me a hug.”

(I hear your secrets, baby. I’m listening)