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My words are desperate and lonely, etched with need. A need to talk to you. A need for things to go back to how they were. A need to hold you in my arms, to tell you that everything is going to be okay and that we will get through this, because we could have both made it. We both know that can't happen anymore.
Tired as I am, I feel a surge of energy course through my body, lighting through my body like a storm - overwhelming, all-encompassing, and inescapable. It’s moments like this that I think you’re trying to talk to me. You’re in the room, even if I can’t see you, and this gut feeling is the only thing that I have to remind myself that you existed; that you’re still here with me. I need to see you.
I need to move on. We need to move on. I know that waiting up for someone that I know is buried in the dirt a million miles away from me seems ridiculous, but it's a feeling that I can’t shake. You’re gone. You’re bones, underneath the stars, and consumed by earth. You don’t exist in the 3D anymore, but part of me hopes that you’ll never leave me, even if I never see you again. I can’t save your body. I can only hope that I can save your ghost.
On days like this, it’s the hardest. When things are bad, when I’m low, and I’m reminded that I’ve failed the one person I was supposed to have in my life. You were supposed to stay with me, you know. It’s not fair to leave. I forgive you anyway, despite the twisting and churning in my stomach and heart that tell me that it’s not okay. I can’t stay mad at you. I’m not good at staying mad, and neither are you. I silently wonder if we’ve made up in some strange way, now that you aren’t here anymore. I wonder if your last thought was of me, was of our life. Was it about your family, maybe? I hope that your last thought, the last thing your brain could think of before blipping out of existence, was kind. Kinder than mine is to me, I hope.
Sometimes, I call out to you, hoping you can somehow hear me, despite the low growling that make up my words, and the heaving breaths that make my body shudder with effort. I ramble. I keep talking, as if you’re here with me. As if you’ve always been here. As if things are just how they used to be. As if things never changed, and you’re sitting across from me, drinking that tea you like, with your nose scrunching the way that it did when you were passionate about something. I call out to you. It’s not pretty. It’s tight in my throat and in my chest with strangled sobs and cries. I can barely talk. I can’t stop talking.
All of my words slur into one sentence. “I miss you.”
And I do. More than I think I could ever put into words. You’ve been on my mind constantly, running through my thoughts so often I’m surprised your ghost isn’t complaining to me about the cardio. You never liked to run. My brain is muddled, stuck in an in-between world, where you’re here, but you’re not - I can’t decide which one would be easier. A world where you’re gone, but happy, or a world where you are here, but you’re not. Is your happiness more important than my suffering? Is your relief more important than my loneliness?
I stand as still as I can, but I can’t stop the tears. They don’t listen when I tell them not to fall. I close my eyes and listen for you. I’m used to hearing things that aren’t there; brief hallucinations and delusions that I’ve always dealt with my entire life. It’s been a hard existence, trying to figure out what is reality and what isn’t. Especially when the only person who’s ever grounded you is gone. I try to remember the things that you told me about listening to the world around you. Don’t get lost in your head. I remember. I try to listen.
I close my eyes, and my ears strain as I try to hear anything that could possibly be you. A train horn. A cricket chirping. A car engine. I will take any noise as a confirmation that you are here with me, because while I tell everyone that I’m fine, and I put on a brave face, you are one of the few things that I crave. You’re one of the few things that made life worth it. So I listen. I wait. I wait so long that I think I might have become bones, too.
But there is only silence.
Nothing happens.
There is no response.
It’s a stark reminder that you aren’t here right now, in body, or in spirit. I think of all the different ways that I could die that would hurt less than this.
Despite you being gone for so long now, you still feel so close, so real, as if you never even left. I feel you walk me to my bus in the morning. I can sense you in our bed, still. Your scent still clings to the pillow. It’s almost gone now, and I’m scared to wash the sheets of your fingerprints and warmth. I’m scared to wash you out of my life completely. Maybe you aren’t really gone. Maybe the silence is the illusion. Maybe I’m not doing this right, and I need to be trying harder. I should have tried harder for you, but I didn’t - I should have done it while you were alive, but better late than never, right?
There is silence for a long time.
I’m trapped in my own thoughts, my own spiral that I can't break out of, and I go down the rabbit hole quicker than anything else I’ve ever experienced. It’s quick. It’s nasty. It’s dark.
It doesn't get better, I think. It doesn't stop. You told me that it stopped, but you also didn’t wait around long enough to find out if it could ever get easier. You left before you could know. Maybe it was your way of figuring it out. Sometimes, I wish I could follow you just to see if you were right. You’re almost always right.
But I guess this is our life now.
Eternal silence for you. Never ending paranoia for me.
I’ll keep listening for you, in everything that I do, everywhere I go. You’re gone, but part of me knows that you never really left. Maybe that’s the delusions again. Maybe it’d be easier to accept that you’re gone, but I’ve never really done very well on my own. Maybe one of these days, when I talk to you while making my morning coffee, or during my stupid shows, or winding down for bed, I’ll hear you.
And you’ll come back to me.
But for right now, all I can do is wait and try again tomorrow.