He's here.

I keep touching what his mind would say, and I wonder if he's still alive, because I don't hear the words much anymore. I don't hear much of anything anymore. Just a faint hum somewhere off in a distance that I know I'll never reach, since it keeps growing with every step I take. I will never be close enough to rescue my present, and the future is only words on a page. The past is what might be solid, if everyone else could remmeber. And I still have the makings of the best story never told.

Because there are pieces that I can never let go, and those pieces are too dear to try. I hold them, and I hurt them, and eventually I'll die bleeding from them. It's the way I built my other sides, and the way I heard voices from the time when I was young enough to know better. But I'm not the only one who hears the voices, and I won't be the only one to need rescuing from them. They bite, you know.

Sometimes hard, sometimes not. But teeth are teeth, and memories are dull as protection.