I felt death coming, its breath cold on my neck with every moment that felt so oddly cinematic.
The old flame returning, like a song that had lost melody long ago. She whispered in my ear that I could have her, but I no longer enjoyed her song. It was better when I could dream of how it once played, rather than the tune it now so faintly hummed.
I fell in love perhaps 1000 times. With people. With moments. With machines. I was so sure that life glowed so brightly in awareness of what was soon to quickly burn out.
Yet, I’m still here. When I heard your voice on the phone, and I knew you weren’t coming, I knew it was clear.
The death was not mine alone. It was us. It was what we were.
As I wait for bureaucracy to move along and the paperwork to catch up to where we now remain, I’m haunted by the sudden reality that I can no longer run from what’s happened.
There is no work to accompany my mind. No temporary embrace to warm the coldness that surrounds me. The love that remains is my own, and of my future that lives in the heart of a child.
I walk among endless fields, the grass dry and barren, yet still golden with beauty. It’s as if every memory that led to this present surrounds me, and every moment promised that never came true.
I know you’re in the barn, and that’s where I’m headed. Not to say I love you, though if you love someone, you always will. Not to claim you one last time. Not to ask you what led to this.
I’m just here to say goodbye. You were the greatest love of my life, but now I must let you go. Not to fall into the arms of another… but to accept the embrace of myself.