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Touch me. Feel me. Wrap your arms around me. Your ashes slip right through my fingers, and the world suddenly seems so small. There's no place for you here, and maybe there never was, but you were mine, always mine, and I whisper your name like a prayer. I live for you -- I have always lived for you -- and now I long for you all over again. I'm trash. I'm the dirt beneath my feet. I'm falling through the earth's layers, becoming one with the warm center. And I think it could be your heartbeat. I see you. I feel you. And your ashes coat my hands. I am dirty for you, downright filthy for you, and you don't know, you'll never know. I'll spend decades choking on words left unsaid. I bow to regret and bend to the earth's gravitational pull. And you're gone. Ashes again. I taste loneliness and breathe regret.
There's a world beyond the war, and I can't fault you for wishful thinking. It's so easy to get lost, and it's so much harder to find the way. In the quiet moments, I'm half a man, the other half bare skin and bones. I wear your hat and robes and I'm so small, darling. They fit in all the wrong ways, and I'm so sorry I couldn't save you. It's you in that big office. It's you in the mirror. Where have I gone? I'm a ghost, but I'm all yours. Take me with you. Why can't you take me with you? Apologies taste a lot like ashes. Say hello from beyond the grave.
There was nothing to bury, your name replaced on the stone. You're a secret now, my secret, and I carry it with pride. There's a path to redemption that someone else walks now, but I pretend that it's you. I pardon you for all the wrong reasons, and there's a hollow place in my heart that blooms just for you. No one visits your memorial, no one but me, and I talk to you endlessly. We were young once, and I'm sorry all over again. Tell me how to make it right. The breeze answers me, the cicadas answer me, and you're nothing but dirt and stone. It's silly to bring you flowers, but I bring you bouquets of love and loss. The flowers wilt there, and I'm reminded of how time passes and people change.
I hide love in friendship and camaraderie. I hide love in the tender way I care for your grave. I whisper words of guilt and shame, and there's nothing I can do to reignite my flame. Nothing burns me better than you. There's nothing quite as final as goodbye.
The hat weighs heavy on my head, driving me down, down, down, and no one knows quite when I drowned. But nothing comforts me quite like the waves. Wait for me at the horizon, where two worlds collide. Wait for me in the way the seasons change. Watch the years fall away. I remember you in quiet moments, beneath the shade of a tree, but memories fade. If only you had stayed.
Nothing hurts quite like moving on. Shaky steps. Shaky breaths. I die a little more every day. And maybe it's better this way, so much better this way.