Dead man walking

Gonna get the chair, they said. 

You're a dead man walking, they said. 

But they've said it all before. Everyone who's sat in my cell has been taunted and abused.  My case is nothing special. I'm just some low life that's gone and killed an innocent girl. 

At least that's what they tell me. 

What else would they think?  She died at my house; was stabbed with my knife; her blood stained my white shirt red. 

The cops never would- never could- believe my story. That we were in love; that I cared for her more than anything. They'd never buy that she was depressed and angry; that she wanted to die. Her's was a perfect life. 

They never saw her fears, her anxiety, her pills that she popped again and again. Try never saw her as I did: damaged, but beautiful. Never could they have seen a mental patient willing to fall on a knife to ensure her own demise when her mess ran out. 

It was all too convenient to the cops; that as she fell to her death the coffee table would break. No one could have predicted the disorder in that room. And I guess it was just bad luck to walk in five minutes before the cops. 

Those few minutes alone with her were a blur. I remember frantically moving her body away from the broken table to lay her flat. I was torn as to whether or not I should remove the knife. I tried CPR. Mostly though, I just held her. 

When the cops came in, all they saw was a dead body, displaced and broken furniture, and my prints on the knife I chose to leave in. It was a textbook domestic violence case gone wrong. 

My trial was short. Guilt was painted all over my face. In a way I did kill her. I didn't keep her safe from herself. I was the only one who knew her true self; the only one who knew about her depression. But it doesn't matter now. 

My execution is tonight. My captors think that tomorrow I'll be dead. But they still don't understand. I've already died. Without her I've nothing left.