Off a cliff.

There are stories in every past that haunt the living. There are truths we come to in the course of life that keep us catching our tongues indefinitely. Certain casual turns of phrase aren't casual anymore. Certain topics are off limits. We avoid the gaze of others when the buttons are pressed knowing that they won't understand that they've pressed anything; they weren't there. They don't know.

Something odd about it is that the memories that hold me back, the people whose faces flash through my head when someone says something unintentionally insensitive, the eyes I see when my mouth forms certain words -- words I know better than to say -- those people are all dead. Somehow that makes it all seem more real.