No one wants to hear about the dead. About dead strangers, least of all. No one wants to hear about you, and now I am the last one who remembers you. You are too much for me. You are too beautiful. It is too great a load to bear.
If we had had children, then someone would care. Someone would want to hear. What cowardice! To regret our own best decisions - made for the best, we both agreed! To want to bring another life into this blank, hollow world for no reason but to serve as another uncomprehending witness to another meaningless set of lives. My darling wife! You won't even be a ghost now, once I am gone. They say those who pass on, live on in our memories. When I go, no one will remember you anymore. No one will remember me. No one will remember us.
We will have not mattered.
For a lifetime together, each of us was all the other ever needed. They say that there can never be perfection in this world. This is not true. I have been a witness to perfection. I knew it each day, a perfection so flawless that it fooled me into thinking it was only normal life.
Where have you gone? How can I say "where have you gone," when I know where you are, when I visit you almost every day? Me above, you below. How I wish that I could say "you above, me below" - you above, awaiting me! Awaiting our reunion. What bitterness, to wish upon myself the certainty of fools! You never wished for that. You were stronger, and you went first...and I am left behind.
I can see your face, looking into my eyes, more strongly than anything I have seen in this world for...many years now. More strongly than anything I have seen since you last looked into my eyes. You would not look away. You held my gaze until I saw the light go from your eyes, and...my world cracked. I stayed holding your hand, broken, until finally they swept me from the room. I have been swept everywhere since, everywhere I go, in pieces.
Maybe it wasn't you who died. Maybe I am the one dead: and this is hell. But if so, there are far too many Christians here to suit my taste.
Love, no one wants to hear talk about the dead. No one wants to hear me tell about you. So many stories, all of them wonderful! All of them good. And I am the last. The only one who cares.
I hold on to everything about you. Without even trying - I am not even trying to hold on! I can't let go of you. I can't let go because you are all I can hold in my mind. Everything else slips away.
I am afraid. I fear my mind is going. My heart has already gone, but I can still fear for my mind? How absurd, when I would gladly trade the one for the other! To sink into insanity, if only to sink into your arms!
Forgive me. Please forgive me. I know that you would never have wanted this; never wanted me like this. I am so, so sorry. My love, I am so sorry.
Can you ever forgive me?
2 comments:
She'd tell him, I miss you too. Please forgive me. I didn't want to leave you alone. I did fight. With everything. But it wasn't good enough.
Forgive me.
Yes, I'm sure she would. But unfortunately, she can't and never will. She doesn't exist at all, in any form, and cannot even be prayed to (for prayer is not worship, no, it is only a plea).
And that is what he knows for sure, and what she always knew, too. They were each other's refuge against the overpowering strength of world's utter meaninglessness. Now he has lost himself in his own eyes, without her he no longer feels he is the strong man she admired. And his heart and his mind do nothing but pray, and his conscience damns himself for doing so.
It's not about faith, but need. She can't hear and can't respond - of that, he knows damn well. She can't help him, and he can't help himself.
There's nothing to say to help him. We're all in the same boat. It's not going to be okay, not for any of us.
Heaven help us all.
Post a Comment