I didn't know what to expect from this weekend. I am in Chicago for the Pink Party, the fundraiser event that your sister Berkley, and her husband Bob, founded to honor their beloved baby Jane who was born asleep 3 years ago. It is the event we met at. It is our two-year anniversary. A year ago, we attended this event arm-in-arm. I wore a European pink, chiffon, and sequin strapless gown. I'd bought it in Vail one day when you went skiing and I stayed at the house to work. I felt like a prima ballerina at the party that night, our one-year anniversary. You coordinated your outfit with my dress, as you always loved to do. We shopped together to find you a tie and a new shirt. Initially, you planned to wear a black suit – you felt it was appropriate for winter – but I convinced you to go with your grey one – a Hugo Boss we bought together for you in Austin. You looked so handsome in a suit. It was you in a suit that caught my eye two-years ago at this same event. But, I don't get to see you in a suit tomorrow. It is not only our two-year anniversary, but also marks three months since your death. I have my pink dress, but I don't have my love. Your sister has the memory of Jane, she has her newborn son, William, but she doesn't have her brother. Anxiety is creeping up into my chest. My skin feels chilled. My throat is raw. My heart beats loudly, a reminder that it is still working even though it's in severe pain. My eyes are cast low. The sound of my own laughter is a shock to my system; it hits like a static shock when you unknowingly touch a charged doorknob or railing. My dreams are cursed. My thoughts feel claustrophobic in the confines of my skull. I feel lost.
I walked by a store this morning called Material Possessions. I slowed and gazed at the window displays. I thought about all the things in there that people would purchase just so they could take ownership of something. So they could show off what they have. I used to show you off. I thought I had you. But I learned you cannot possess ones heart, not even your own – it can go at any time. I thought about how, over the past few months, material possessions have suddenly seemed so immaterial. And yet, at the same time, I've also felt a need to hold onto what is mine. This is my shoe. This is my car. This is my phone. You cannot take it! It is MINE. I've felt a sort-of deserving (a nasty word that I try to avoid) towards whatever I can possess. I have been robbed of what's most important to me. I am free-falling through life right now. Whatever I can cling to is giving me some sort of stability, some sort of wall to hold. When the lover is ripped from my bed, the career is pulled from before my eyes, and in some sense, the floor from beneath my feet – what am I supposed to hold on to? I wrap myself in my own arms, but I am still cold. I need your arms. But if I can't have your arms, I at least need a really warm, new, fancy blanket.
It's been painful for me to go back and look at photos of us. Seeing the joy in my eyes, the height of my cheekbones due to a smile so big, and the closeness of our bodies pressed together makes my whole being quake with sadness. I'm jealous of past-Sami. But I'm also scared that if I don't look, I'll forget. I'll forget the way I felt when I was with you – complete peacefulness, exuberant joy, unconditional love. I know the words I felt, but will I remember the feeling? When we were together, we didn't need to be anywhere else but with each other. We were just as happy under the covers alone as we were in a crowd of loved ones. We were always smiling together, even when we were grumpy about life. We were always having fun. There was never a lull in joy.
So, to preserve the memories, I looked at the photos of us from this same event, one year ago. I admired the giddyness in my eyes with an envious despair. I looked at how your fingers gripped into my shoulder in one photo, a proud possessiveness. I looked at how your hands interlaced around my waist in another, pulling me close into your hug. I pressed into you with beaming willingness. I looked at a photo of us kissing. We are smiling so big that our lips are too puckered to kiss properly. My cheekbones smash into my eye sockets because of my grin. We look like two frozen goldfish. My eyes are slivers that can't see – but they don't need to because they feel your touch, your caress. I would happily be blind for the rest of my life if I could just feel you alive, if I could just hear your voice.
As an anniversary gift to us, I plan to listen to the one voice-mail I have from you that I have never checked. You left it for me about a week before you died. It will probably be you asking me to pick up some avocados or you letting me know that you scheduled an appointment to get your tires rotated. But, just maybe, it will be a message I need to hear. Maybe you will tell me you are always around me. Maybe you will tell me that I will be happy again someday. And maybe, hopefully, I will be able to hear you say "I love you" in your voice, one final time, for the first time.
Showing posts with label kiss. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kiss. Show all posts
Fallen Queen
We were so in love.
Our hearts exploded all over one another like stars scattered across the Milky Way. I kissed every inch of your body. I ran my fingers through every strand of your hair and I sucked on each one of your toes. Your tongue discovered every wet place of mine that had never been reached. You even pressed it to my wisdom teeth and while you licked you siphoned poetry into my soul. You made me come alive with your touch. Your hand fit into mine like the latched lock on a buried treasure on the bottom of the sea. When clasped, our hands had a priceless secret between them. A knowing. A truth.
You made me feel like a princess. No, you made me feel like the queen. The queen of the universe. A universe where peace reigns and freedom is the only option. Where marching soldiers shoot arrows of compassion. A universe in which broken hearts don't exist because there is only love. Where tears aren't recognized as sadness because they only come from laughter. Where a child never dies. Where every woman is beautiful and every breast is a perfect handful. Where the soundtrack is the cry of passion and everyone wants to hear it. Where all cities are like New York in the sixties. Where every day is a good hair day. Where every photo is a keeper. Where tumors cause longer eyelashes and smaller pores. Where every family lives in a luxurious home with heated floors and everybody has a swimming pool with a slide. Where sleep arrives effortlessly and only puppies and kittens snore. Where the band is always awesome. Where the coffee is always hot, but not so hot you burn your mouth. Where goldfish have the memory of elephants. Where the vegetables grow from real seeds and you don't have to kill an animal to eat meat. Where the dress always makes my ass look fantastic. Where the biggest argument is over who pays the bill, but there – everyone actually wants to pay. Where babies always sleep through the night. Where bouquets of flowers in vases keep living infinitely. Where farts are always funny and never smell. Where everyone likes to dance. Where every game is won by the underdog. Where no one ever has to be alone and even if you want to be – the space will still give you a hug. Where the good guys always finish first. You made me the queen of that universe.
When we were together, our souls shot out of our fingertips like magic from a wizard's wand and connected like two beams of lightning. We became one. The wrinkles around our eyes grew deeper because all we did was smile. We could have powered all the energy needed for the world with our laughs, magic, and rainbows. Our love caused mountains to grow taller. The peaks swelled up from the earth with the Heavens as their magnet and gravity as a forgotten foe. When I was sad you would rock me like a baby in the arms of my mother. And then everything was perfect. We were learning how to fly.
And then we fell. And then you evaporated. And then I crashed. We wanted to make love in the moonlight but instead, it fucked us. You died in the moonlight. When the executioner slaughtered that day's sun it took you with it. The darkness was supposed to be our dance floor and it ended up being a cemetery. And our bedroom is the morgue. Now our memories don't even rob my dreams instead they are drained from my brain like innocence from a child. You disappear into stardust or sawdust or nothing… I don't know.
I am bound. I'm trapped in this world because I believe if I take my life I won't get to go to the same place as you. I'll be captive on the wrong side of a one-way glass window. And I'm too scared to leave. And I don't really want to. I just want you back.
I want you back so we can press our hands into wet concrete and leave an impression for the future. I want you back so when I do my yoga, I can reach for your outstretched fingers instead of a box of tissue. I want you back so I can hold your sisters in a hug of love rather than needing them as a brace to hold me up from crumpling onto the floor as my knees give out. I want you back so we can talk to your mother on Bluetooth while we're driving through the mountains. I want to hear her smile on the other side of the line call you Bubs and you call her Mud. I want to hand her a grandchild in a polka-dotted blanket that looks half like you, half like me, and one-hundred percent like an angel. I want to watch you play catch in the front yard with our little boy and not know who is actually the kid because you will always be my Peter Pan.
Now I imagine sixty more years of life with my head looking backwards over my shoulder remembering the time I carried pixie dust. Dreaming of the treasure I once had, the man I got to touch every night and was supposed to still be touching. At what was supposed to be. I imagine trading in our castle in the sky for a windowless, basement studio apartment with dingy carpet and yellowed, linoleum countertops. I imagine a future of boredom and faithlessness. A future of stumbling steps because I'm too busy straining my eyes at what once was. I imagine kissless love and touchless nights. I imagine sex that's governed by ovulation dates and once in a while maybe too much tequila. I imagine divorce. I imagine searching for a time machine so I can go back to the day before that night. I imagine looking for God in everything and never being able to find him. Hidden beneath my clothes, I imagine scratching the skin off my bones and ripping my nails out of their beds just to try to feel pain worse than loosing you. But it never comes.
And then someday I'll die. Alone. And disappear into stardust or sawdust or nothing… I don't know.
Our hearts exploded all over one another like stars scattered across the Milky Way. I kissed every inch of your body. I ran my fingers through every strand of your hair and I sucked on each one of your toes. Your tongue discovered every wet place of mine that had never been reached. You even pressed it to my wisdom teeth and while you licked you siphoned poetry into my soul. You made me come alive with your touch. Your hand fit into mine like the latched lock on a buried treasure on the bottom of the sea. When clasped, our hands had a priceless secret between them. A knowing. A truth.
You made me feel like a princess. No, you made me feel like the queen. The queen of the universe. A universe where peace reigns and freedom is the only option. Where marching soldiers shoot arrows of compassion. A universe in which broken hearts don't exist because there is only love. Where tears aren't recognized as sadness because they only come from laughter. Where a child never dies. Where every woman is beautiful and every breast is a perfect handful. Where the soundtrack is the cry of passion and everyone wants to hear it. Where all cities are like New York in the sixties. Where every day is a good hair day. Where every photo is a keeper. Where tumors cause longer eyelashes and smaller pores. Where every family lives in a luxurious home with heated floors and everybody has a swimming pool with a slide. Where sleep arrives effortlessly and only puppies and kittens snore. Where the band is always awesome. Where the coffee is always hot, but not so hot you burn your mouth. Where goldfish have the memory of elephants. Where the vegetables grow from real seeds and you don't have to kill an animal to eat meat. Where the dress always makes my ass look fantastic. Where the biggest argument is over who pays the bill, but there – everyone actually wants to pay. Where babies always sleep through the night. Where bouquets of flowers in vases keep living infinitely. Where farts are always funny and never smell. Where everyone likes to dance. Where every game is won by the underdog. Where no one ever has to be alone and even if you want to be – the space will still give you a hug. Where the good guys always finish first. You made me the queen of that universe.
When we were together, our souls shot out of our fingertips like magic from a wizard's wand and connected like two beams of lightning. We became one. The wrinkles around our eyes grew deeper because all we did was smile. We could have powered all the energy needed for the world with our laughs, magic, and rainbows. Our love caused mountains to grow taller. The peaks swelled up from the earth with the Heavens as their magnet and gravity as a forgotten foe. When I was sad you would rock me like a baby in the arms of my mother. And then everything was perfect. We were learning how to fly.
And then we fell. And then you evaporated. And then I crashed. We wanted to make love in the moonlight but instead, it fucked us. You died in the moonlight. When the executioner slaughtered that day's sun it took you with it. The darkness was supposed to be our dance floor and it ended up being a cemetery. And our bedroom is the morgue. Now our memories don't even rob my dreams instead they are drained from my brain like innocence from a child. You disappear into stardust or sawdust or nothing… I don't know.
I am bound. I'm trapped in this world because I believe if I take my life I won't get to go to the same place as you. I'll be captive on the wrong side of a one-way glass window. And I'm too scared to leave. And I don't really want to. I just want you back.
I want you back so we can press our hands into wet concrete and leave an impression for the future. I want you back so when I do my yoga, I can reach for your outstretched fingers instead of a box of tissue. I want you back so I can hold your sisters in a hug of love rather than needing them as a brace to hold me up from crumpling onto the floor as my knees give out. I want you back so we can talk to your mother on Bluetooth while we're driving through the mountains. I want to hear her smile on the other side of the line call you Bubs and you call her Mud. I want to hand her a grandchild in a polka-dotted blanket that looks half like you, half like me, and one-hundred percent like an angel. I want to watch you play catch in the front yard with our little boy and not know who is actually the kid because you will always be my Peter Pan.
Now I imagine sixty more years of life with my head looking backwards over my shoulder remembering the time I carried pixie dust. Dreaming of the treasure I once had, the man I got to touch every night and was supposed to still be touching. At what was supposed to be. I imagine trading in our castle in the sky for a windowless, basement studio apartment with dingy carpet and yellowed, linoleum countertops. I imagine a future of boredom and faithlessness. A future of stumbling steps because I'm too busy straining my eyes at what once was. I imagine kissless love and touchless nights. I imagine sex that's governed by ovulation dates and once in a while maybe too much tequila. I imagine divorce. I imagine searching for a time machine so I can go back to the day before that night. I imagine looking for God in everything and never being able to find him. Hidden beneath my clothes, I imagine scratching the skin off my bones and ripping my nails out of their beds just to try to feel pain worse than loosing you. But it never comes.
And then someday I'll die. Alone. And disappear into stardust or sawdust or nothing… I don't know.
What I know and what I don't know.
I can officially, without a drop of doubt in my mind, now say that the worst month of my life is behind me. You have been gone a month. It's been a month since we talked. It's been a month since we looked into each others eyes. It's been a month since we said "I love you". It's been a month since we kissed. And like all measures of time, it's one I can't take back.
Time is an interesting concept. One that I don't really even understand anymore, to be honest. I used to think we 'had time on our side'. That was not the case. Time robbed us. Or maybe something else robbed time. An hour seems long when you want it to be short. When you want an hour to last forever, it rushes by. Certain years of my life seem to have lasted ages, when others I had hardly remember because they whisked by. It seems like forever since I last saw you. But then it also seems like just a moment ago. I don't know what time is. I know you didn't either. We used to talk about quantum physics and agree, there was a lot more to space and time than humanity could calculate.
I remember our last kiss. It was at 8:20 pm on Friday, October 24th (2014). It was gentle and loving. We looked into each others eyes. It wasn't rushed. There is no way we could have ever known that was to be our last kiss, that you would take your last breath just five hours later. But considering it was, I have no regrets about that kiss. It was perfect.
I also remember our first kiss. It was on Sunday, January 27th 2013 at about 2 am. You said, "Can I kiss you now!?" It was as if you'd been waiting forever to do so. Maybe you had. Maybe you'd been waiting since our last lifetime together was cut short. No one knows when their first kiss will happen either. One may hope – or maybe it comes out of the blue. Eagerness and lust filling you up. Excitement standing in line with breath mints, chapstick, and impatience. Our first kiss was perfect.
I imagined our kiss on the altar thousands of times. The one that would happen after we got to say "I do". I imagined it as a collage of all the best romance movie kisses – expect better. It would be fueled with true love, excitement, passion, hope, destiny, and faith. It was going to be perfect. It still will be, someday, whatever that means.
What I never once imagined was that it wouldn't happen. I was so sure... wasn't I? Why hadn't I ever considered things could have taken a dark turn, as they did? Had I stuffed premonitions and ominous occurrences aside, and just assumed, with false hope, that we would get what we so thought we deserved – real happiness? Isn't that what the point of life is? Love? Did life deliver us what we deserved? Was our twenty months of true connection and love what life had in store for us? Did we get to squeeze as much love as most beings have in seventy years into that short time? I will never know.
There's not a lot of things I know right now. I am confused about this thing we call time. I am up in the air about the specifics of afterlife. I'm trying to decide if there's a difference between fate, destiny, and happenstance. I am hopeful, but not one-hundred-percent sure that you are watching over me. I'm not sure what to gather from the visions, the mediums, and the signs that have been appearing everywhere. I don't know where you are, I hope it's not just in dust and ashes inside of a cold urn. I don't know why you died. I don't know if there is anything I could have done. I don't know if this is a part of a master plan. I don't know what our children would have looked like, if they would have been blonde or brunette, like we often thought about. I don't know if I will ever be a mother. I don't know if we only have one soul mate. I don't know if I will ever love again. I don't know if you will come back as my child, like you told me you would. I don't know how I'm still standing. I don't know how the hair is still growing on my legs and how my cycle continues to flow, when my heart feels like it has stopped, though I can hear it beat.... beat... beat. I don't know what's next.
But, there's a few things I do know.
"I know that I am glad we had this time together. I am glad we shared our love, even though time cut it short. I also know that I still have all the love. It didn't go anywhere. In fact, it still grows. As the grief grows, the love grows. I have all this love, you gave it to me, and that is your gift to me. That is the biggest gift anyone could receive. Because now I know love, I own love, and I have your love inside of me. And I can share it, like you did. I know that my life will never be the same. I will be a new kind of woman. I will be a new kind of teacher. I will be a new kind of lover. I will be you, in some ways. I KNOW that you are inside of me – not in all the ways I want (giggity) – but you are here. I know that I would not be able to wake up, get out of bed, carry on a conversation, take care of myself, eat, even laugh, for god's sake, without you being in me. I know you are carrying me. In what way that is, I do not know at all, and I never will – but I know you are and that you always will be."
I love you.
Time is an interesting concept. One that I don't really even understand anymore, to be honest. I used to think we 'had time on our side'. That was not the case. Time robbed us. Or maybe something else robbed time. An hour seems long when you want it to be short. When you want an hour to last forever, it rushes by. Certain years of my life seem to have lasted ages, when others I had hardly remember because they whisked by. It seems like forever since I last saw you. But then it also seems like just a moment ago. I don't know what time is. I know you didn't either. We used to talk about quantum physics and agree, there was a lot more to space and time than humanity could calculate.
I remember our last kiss. It was at 8:20 pm on Friday, October 24th (2014). It was gentle and loving. We looked into each others eyes. It wasn't rushed. There is no way we could have ever known that was to be our last kiss, that you would take your last breath just five hours later. But considering it was, I have no regrets about that kiss. It was perfect.
I also remember our first kiss. It was on Sunday, January 27th 2013 at about 2 am. You said, "Can I kiss you now!?" It was as if you'd been waiting forever to do so. Maybe you had. Maybe you'd been waiting since our last lifetime together was cut short. No one knows when their first kiss will happen either. One may hope – or maybe it comes out of the blue. Eagerness and lust filling you up. Excitement standing in line with breath mints, chapstick, and impatience. Our first kiss was perfect.
I imagined our kiss on the altar thousands of times. The one that would happen after we got to say "I do". I imagined it as a collage of all the best romance movie kisses – expect better. It would be fueled with true love, excitement, passion, hope, destiny, and faith. It was going to be perfect. It still will be, someday, whatever that means.
What I never once imagined was that it wouldn't happen. I was so sure... wasn't I? Why hadn't I ever considered things could have taken a dark turn, as they did? Had I stuffed premonitions and ominous occurrences aside, and just assumed, with false hope, that we would get what we so thought we deserved – real happiness? Isn't that what the point of life is? Love? Did life deliver us what we deserved? Was our twenty months of true connection and love what life had in store for us? Did we get to squeeze as much love as most beings have in seventy years into that short time? I will never know.
There's not a lot of things I know right now. I am confused about this thing we call time. I am up in the air about the specifics of afterlife. I'm trying to decide if there's a difference between fate, destiny, and happenstance. I am hopeful, but not one-hundred-percent sure that you are watching over me. I'm not sure what to gather from the visions, the mediums, and the signs that have been appearing everywhere. I don't know where you are, I hope it's not just in dust and ashes inside of a cold urn. I don't know why you died. I don't know if there is anything I could have done. I don't know if this is a part of a master plan. I don't know what our children would have looked like, if they would have been blonde or brunette, like we often thought about. I don't know if I will ever be a mother. I don't know if we only have one soul mate. I don't know if I will ever love again. I don't know if you will come back as my child, like you told me you would. I don't know how I'm still standing. I don't know how the hair is still growing on my legs and how my cycle continues to flow, when my heart feels like it has stopped, though I can hear it beat.... beat... beat. I don't know what's next.
But, there's a few things I do know.
"I know that I am glad we had this time together. I am glad we shared our love, even though time cut it short. I also know that I still have all the love. It didn't go anywhere. In fact, it still grows. As the grief grows, the love grows. I have all this love, you gave it to me, and that is your gift to me. That is the biggest gift anyone could receive. Because now I know love, I own love, and I have your love inside of me. And I can share it, like you did. I know that my life will never be the same. I will be a new kind of woman. I will be a new kind of teacher. I will be a new kind of lover. I will be you, in some ways. I KNOW that you are inside of me – not in all the ways I want (giggity) – but you are here. I know that I would not be able to wake up, get out of bed, carry on a conversation, take care of myself, eat, even laugh, for god's sake, without you being in me. I know you are carrying me. In what way that is, I do not know at all, and I never will – but I know you are and that you always will be."
I love you.
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