I feed dead things
I feed dead things.
I keep them close, tucked into the corners of my life, because somewhere deep in my wiring I believed I could nurse anything back to health. Even the dead. Especially the dead.
But I can’t. At least I know that now.
Almost 39 years on this spinning rock and I’ve finally learned what the universe has been screaming at me since forever: you can’t resurrect the dead.
Not relationships. Not people. Not versions of myself I’ve outgrown.
Maybe it comes from a biological father who abandoned me at birth. Who showed up when I was 13 for one week, disappeared like smoke, reappeared at 15 for two days, then again at 22 for two weeks before I finally cut him off. A man who taught me that love is something you have to chase, that presence is temporary, that you’re only worth showing up for in intervals.
Maybe it comes from a biological mother who had me at 15 and never felt like my mother at all. We lived in the same house until I was 10, and I watched her be parented by the woman who was actually raising me. Slow-drip torture from the inside. My Nan was my mother, but I couldn’t call her mum. I had to call her Nan. It was all sorts of fucked up.
My Nan’s other children, some still living in the house as I got older, made sure I knew I didn’t belong. Told me I was adopted, found on the side of the road, a burden they were stuck with because my bio mum got pregnant and being Catholic, abortions were a no-no. I did everything I could to earn love. Nothing worked. I know now, at 38, that my Nan loved me. But back then? All I knew was that I had to be worth keeping.
Maybe it comes from watching and nursing my Grandfather die over six weeks of leukaemia when I was 15. I lived in the house with him and my Nan. We both took care of him. Helped him up from couches, took his shoes off, his clothes. Got his food. Other people showed up, his other children, but they all got to go home. I was the one hearing his death creep closer every night, learning that loyalty means staying when everyone else gets to leave.
The first night I was allowed a sleepover was the night he died. I’ll never forgive myself, even though I know he wouldn’t have wanted me home. I think he made that happen, timed it so I wouldn’t have to see it. But all I learned was that the moment I step away, the people I love disappear.
Maybe it comes from the news at 16 that my best friend (Michael) had been killed by a tired driver in a t-bone collision. Gone. Just like that. It made me grip friendships tighter, especially ones with men. Made me believe it was my job to save them. That if I just paid enough attention, loved hard enough, stayed vigilant enough, I could prevent loss.
Maybe it comes from being 22 and having a man who was becoming my best friend tell me we couldn’t be friends anymore, otherwise his girlfriend would break up with him. So I accepted it. Bent over backwards so we could keep our friendship in secret, hidden away like something shameful. It taught me that the things I want to keep need to be buried. That I’m not someone you can love publicly or out loud. That I’m fine to have around as long as no one else knows about it.
So I’ve seen potential where there was only rot. Stayed loyal well past expiration dates. Chose something dead over something alive because I thought my love could be the defibrillator. Made their growth more important than my peace, their healing more urgent than my own.
I depleted myself trying to complete someone else’s lesson for them.
Here’s what I know now: I can see the path. I can illuminate it with every neon sign I’ve got. I can even show someone how to walk it, step by step, holding their hand through the dark bits. But I cannot walk it for them.
And the people I thought it was my responsibility to teach? They were actually my teachers.
I’ve known for a long time that I feed dead things. But this year, I was smashed in the face with a situation that brought it all to light. My soul finally said enough is enough.
They taught me that some things are meant to die. That letting go isn’t failure, it’s respect. For what was, for what isn’t anymore, and for what could be if I stopped trying to breathe life into bones that have already turned to dust.
The hardest part wasn’t realising I couldn’t save them. The hardest part was realising I’d been choosing the dead over the living, again and again, like some kind of spiritual masochist. Like my worth was measured in how much decay I could endure.
But I’m done now. Done feeding what won’t survive. Done watering what refuses to grow.
Because the living things in my life deserve more than the scraps I have left after pouring everything into corpses.