21 Reasons Why

1/Because we met at The Spectrum during a Police concert and Sting singing about pedophile teachers.

2/Because she asked me to get coffee, to sit in the dark listening to live jazz and telling stories and lies.

3/Because we walked home after work holding hands and stopping under streetlights to kiss while moths circled over
our heads in frenetic maneuvers chasing their own illumination.

4/Because she told me of her past and it broke my heart.

5/Because I took her brother to the emergency room when he was drunk and desperate, sat listening to him interview with the crisis worker and talk about drinking at age twelve and saying no he was not suicidal, the case of beer, handful of Xanax, and fifth of whiskey were usual for Saturday night.

6/Because the first time she got sick we were working out together at the gym and she passed out. I spent eight days at the hospital and cried hysterically when visiting hours were over.

7/Because I bought the ring and proposed before asking her father, something he still does not know even though he is in his grave, or maybe he does and can’t do anything about it.

8/Because our first child took thirty hours of labor, standing in the hospital room and watching her sweat, bleed, and moan.

9/Because she stayed when I lost my job, when checks bounced and collectors called, when food was a dream and winter days were heated by a fire burning in an old metal trash can.

10/Because she stayed after the book deal, the book tours, the autographs and letters and emails. She would read novels and shake her head, telling me she knew it was all true no matter what I said.

11/Because she knew about the undergrad, my transformation into the teacher from the Police concert. She absorbed my indiscretion and burned it in the fire of her infinite grace and understanding, or ignored it in her damaged soul, chalking it up to another unreliable man.

12/Because she was innocent in all this, not deserving of her suffering, and yet don’t the innocent always pay for someone else’s crimes?

13/Because she took me back after six months in an apartment, me showing up on the lawn yelling in her window how much I was sorry and the pain tore my soul in half.

14/Because every little thing she does reminds me of her heart, her smile and her perfection and my lack.

15/Because my cousin owned the gun and gave it to me without suspicion.

16/Because the note was no more than a sentence.

17/Because the bottle of vodka makes it easier.

18/Because I am too old to make it right.

19/Because she died a year ago today.

20/Because no one will find me.


21/Because I will never have the words.