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Three days.
I look up, I close my eyes. I try to imagine you here with me. We could have done it, I’m sure! We could have figured it out! Run away! Left this place behind, left these memories, this cruelty. Maybe we’d have settled a new island, maybe we’d have found a place where he couldn’t get you.
But even drowning in the loss of you, I know you’d never have gone.
You were always better than me, and you would have given yourself fully to Phillip—I know, rationally—I know that you made your choice, and that choice was me, but I was eclipsed, I think, in that moment, and you forgot that you had a family to come home to.
And I don’t forgive you. But I’ll work on it. You had to give yourself to your cause, to your love, and in your infinite mercy, I hope you allow me to do the same.
So, I tell you silently, by a bed of stars and your empty coffin; that I love you, that I always will, I’m sorry that it ended like this, come back, be here and that someday, we’ll meet again. In the silence of the moon, I try to convince myself that you’re not gone.
But I know the truth.
Four days.
I lied.
I scream for you every night. Stay, stay, stay.
One year.
I talk to you every night. But tonight, sitting with my feet dangling at the edge of the world (the rooftop), I see you just as I did before and I manage to say, “I love you.” Because I do—I always will. And I miss you so much. I don’t want to give myself to anyone. I don’t want to feel another touch; I don’t want to another kiss other than yours. I would rather wait for you.
You’d know what to do. You always did.
Two and a half years.
The ache in my bones will not cease. It’s a part of me now, like my eyes—my hair and my horrible misshapen heart that’s been taken up with you—leaving me here, anchored to the ground by my empty chest.
Why did you have to leave me?
I need you so badly. Inhumanely. You became my home. I don’t belong here. I never did, and I certainly don’t without you. Without you, I feel like a stranger in my own skin. A foreigner in my own land.
Why did you do this to me?
If only I could do it all over.
Ten years.
Forgive me.
Twelve years.
I think I may be broken; clinically incapable of casual feeling, destined for thin skin, burning red and forever a need for more. For hurt. To hurt, to be hurt. I have tried throughout my life to give it up, and I know I’ll try again and again until the day I see you again, to feel less; but I have predisposition to devotion, Mr. Difficult.
My lovers have all left a mark, and I have always welcomed it; whether romantic or platonic, running open-armed into a forest fire. I am like that, too, I suppose; ablaze, waiting to see if someone can finally smother me, put me out.
Fourteen years.
I promised myself that I wouldn’t tilt my head like this. I wouldn’t torture myself like this. But I miss you. So much. Today is your birthday, and in mine, your heart still beats. I still wear it, and I still love you, even with the weight against my skin reminding me just how much time has passed since your head was in my hands.
My world keeps turning and turning—and I’m not moving on.
I wish you had a grave for me to visit. I know it’s a selfish request, but I wish I had somewhere to lay down flowers. But you died, and you didn’t leave a body behind for me to clutch. And that hurts too. It’s the simple things, I’ve come to realise.
I live through memories and thoughts of a better reality that isn’t mine.
A time where there was no war to be fought, no sacrifices to be made—no earth, no skin, to mar forever. No aches, and we would eat breakfast while looking at each other, we would read the paper—we would go to work like perfectly normal, mundane, dare I say boring, people. We would get married, and maybe we’d even know what it was like.
There would be nothing to win, and I would not feel guilty about the rage ebbing away into nothing. If I don’t have my rage for you—if I haven’t avenged you, haven’t you died for nothing, my love? I—
I don’t know.
I—
Goodnight.
Twenty-five years.
I try to speak to you, but only in my head and heart because sometimes it may feel silly to others—that I must look up to find you tucked beneath the stars—but my memory still serves me well, and I never think I will forget how blue your eyes are, even with my memories flickering in black and white.
I never thought I would find myself lying in your arms. I never thought that you would break down my walls. I never thought that I would catch myself crying—because I’m becoming the only person that remembers you wholly and I think it’s been like that for years.
But time’s arrow flies onwards, and it always pierces its target. And it’s starting to sink in, dig against my bone. I panic, because even if I know I will never forget—you are not just mine to hold. We have too many memories for just two people—one person—to hold.
So, if you’re there—tell me how blue your eyes are. I miss them.
I miss them more than anything.
Thirty years.
Can we go back to the Knee?
When the frostbitten earth brought us to the warmth of one another, and I found the fire waiting hot in your chest? Can we make our way back, find the road home, to where your arms fit perfectly around my body, where blue eyes, soft snow, looked at me in reverence?
Or I have I brought you out in the summer sun too soon, too quickly? Have I melted the sun before it was due for change? Looked for the trees and missed the rich soil you made for me?
Can we go back to the Knee?
Or has spring come at last, warm breezes built to knock down and not cradle and melt away our bodies, our sanctum, into dark imprints in the snow?
Thirty-four years.
If you’d stayed, would you still love me now? Would you love me, even if I was nothing new? Would you still want me? I still love you. I still love you so, so much. I want you more than anything.
Forty-nine years.
Is it too much to ask if I can nestle myself into that soft canyon between your shoulder blades? I need permission, some trick of your lips so I may rest there, eyes closed in the oasis of your skin.
Can you hold me a little longer, let the strength of your back collapse into river currents and carry me, my flesh bobbing up and down to the rhythm you hold in your chest? I think what we need to do is run through sweetgrass, the same short softness of your hair.
I need to rest, watch the way the marigolds of your home grow in the dip of your spine. Can I take root there, too?
Sixty-one years.
My skin is untainted by my age. This is of no surprise to me. Sometimes, I find myself wondering what you would look like now. No doubt you’d still be handsome. You always were. I still wear your rage, and I try to steal your gentleness.
So, you were never a saint and I always loved in shades of wrong. So what? I want you back. I want to go back.
I talk to Phillip now. In a way I didn’t do when I was alive. I don’t know if you’d be proud of me, or disgusted. I don’t know what’s worse: the echo or your answer.
We spoke of you—because surprisingly, it’s what hurts less nowadays. He misses you too. Immensely so. You know, he told me that he sees you sometimes.
And you say that you’re proud of me. I think he’s just humouring me.
But if he’s right for once, thank you. I love you and I can’t wait to come home.
Ninety-nine years.
Today is my birthday. But I cannot find much reason to celebrate. For most, that would be a tragedy—to be one year closer to the hereafter. But for me? It would be a miracle. All I want is to feel your skin against mine again. But until the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, I am stuck in an eternity without you.