i must make you the perfect morning ; teddy

t e d d y .

"And there's a millipede
Angry on your carpet
Oh and I must admit
He's staring with a vengeance"

I often lie and tell them I don't remember that time well.

I just hate it when they feel sorry for me because I'm the only one who puts that worried look on their faces all the time. It's been two years since then but I'm still the baby.

So it's a lie but it's to protect them so that makes it alright.

Because I know that when I was dying, I mean dying, I was starting to unravel. I was in pain every single waking moment and even in my dreams. Nothing hurts me now the way it all hurt then.

I wish I could blame the fever that came for me in those last few days but it wasn't, I was just seeing ghosts. My mom sat with me every night that week even though I'd seen her shot down by a firing squad two years prior, I swear on my life that she was there.

I called out for her a couple of times, pathetic little sounds leaving lips that were bloody from my ragged breaths. All it ever earned me was a cool cloth on my forehead and one of my brother's hushed voices, trying to tell me it was ok.

But it gets to the point where the pain is too intense and your brain can't fathom it anymore so it refuses to, mainly to keep you from going mental. If you've reached that tier though, you probably already have.

Have you ever had a near-death experience?

It's a lot less peaceful than you'd think. There was no white light, nobody greeting me at pearly gates or anything, just me and a vast darkness that seemed to stretch for miles and miles. It beckoned.

I couldn't move though, my feet were sinking into the black. I was vaguely aware of someone shouting, of something beeping too fast and pressure on my chest but it didn't seem important. I was discovering the secrets to the universe, they were unravelling in front of me as my body sunk lower and I began to understand that I was never going to see my mom again but I always was at the same time.

The universe was swallowing me alive but I was happy about it because I could feel every thought I'd ever had leaving as if someone had come into my brain and opened all the windows at once. Everything that had ever mattered to me was blowing away until I couldn't recall life before the darkness.

But that's when the sense of peace came, after the violence of losing everything important to me and the black was up to my chest then. It pooled around me and I didn't fight it. I was going to disappear but I wasn't. I was going to be a part of a whole, dispersed through one significance but still me.

And I still don't understand why we live our lives apart on earth when in death we're so entangled.

The dark was up to my throat when I heard him call me. "Teddy," he said and his voice made him sound like he was drowning, "Teddy please." There was pressure on my hand, the feeling of lips on my forehead and the sudden clarity of an electric shock to my system.

My eyes opened wide, lungs scrambling for purchase and my body flopped like a fish on Ken's operating table.

"You're back," she said quickly from beneath a medical mask, "Your brothers found a match Teddy, it's now or never. Do you consent?"

I turned my head slowly, eyes travelling around the room to see Tripp on my right, Teva on my left with my hand in his and Tate holding my head steady above me.

I was going to tell her no. I remember that clearly, that I was ready to tell Ken to just let me die. I was so exhausted.

Maybe Tate knew I was hesitating, his thumb brushed across my cheekbone and I saw tears in his eyes.

"Yeah," I croaked, "Yeah, fuck it, do it."

I was going to die either way.