Maybe it wasn't you, but it sure wasn't me. Not then, not with you, not when my blood still ran red. But when sap and dirt dripped out my ears and my brain drowned in skeletons and sickness and I looked to you like a puppy drowing in the deep-end and you held your hands near your shoulders like the West was pulling them to her, like she was taking you away from me. I splashed my way out, and I dressed up my bones, wrapped and bandaged them for some other day when they felt stronger. I learned you couldn't save me, that it wasn't your job. That tasks like living weren't right to pawn off to others. That duties like breathing belonged to the dying.