“You know I’ll always love you right my unicorn? I have to go now, but I will always love you.” Your warmth was leaving me, as was your scent. I clawed at you desperately, my fists making little balled clenches around the fabric of your shirt. “But I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay here with me. Please?” I felt hope, joy and happiness slowly crawl their way out of my life. You were leaving me, and they were bent on guiding your course. Despair seeped out from the corners of my eyes, stained my cheeks and soothed my burning skin, as though mocking my naivety for trying to bridge the distance between life and death. “Baby please. Baby please don’t go. I won’t make it without you. Baby please please please stay here with me. Please.” What was a well formed argument aimed at trying to keep you here had become nothing but a string of hopeless pleas. My thighs were next to yours, my hands on your shoulders around your neck and I, the entirety of I was placed upon you. The weight of me, placed upon the firmness of yours. Just like we had been this morning.
You looked so calm, so serene. On your face was the same smile I loved so much, on your cheeks the dimples in which I lost myself. Nothing had changed. You were here with me. Everything that happened was nothing but a bad dream. You were here with me. So was your touch, your breath, your scent and your heartbeat. “I have to go now baby. But I will always be here for you. Always and forever remember?” You reached across the little distance between us and placed a warm palm firmly against my chest. “I have to return you this for the time being. I ‘ll see you soon alright? Keep it safe for me? I’m sorry I couldn’t let you keep mine for longer. But I promise to let you steal it back when I see you again. For now, take this.” Then, I realized my heart was beating again. “But I don’t want my heart, I want yours! Don’t go please. Stay with me.” This was a battle I couldn’t lose. When it came to you, I never settled for less. I never gave in. “I have to go now dear, but I’ll see you soon. I will always love you. Always and forever right?”
Dealing with loss is never easy. Your lingering scent on my pillowcase, your clothes in that little compartment I gave you in my closet. Trying to remove you from my life was like trying to remove a sticky price label from a clear surface. No matter how hard you tried, some of it remained. You had grown and manifested yourself in my life like a parasitic organism. You left yourself in my milk cartons, in my candy jars and breakfast toasts. You left yourself in my thoughts, my words, my memories and my love. You were always with me-in the air I learnt to grasp thinking it was your hands, in the corners of pillows where I would leave kisses, thinking it were your cheeks, in the clothes I learnt to wear, thinking it were your hands around my waist. Every day, I miss you. So much more than I can bear. But I have also been enlightened to the fact that every day, you are there with me, that you will always love me, even if death separates us. Always and forever.
Inspired by a dream I can now only vaguely remember, in which words uttered hit me like a particularly harsh November rain-painful but oddly comforting. I hope you never die, but everyone does. I hope you never die, and live on infinitely.
braintango 