Will you say to me
When I'm gone,
"Your face is faded
But lingers on . . . ?"
-- Iron and Wine
Sometimes sorrow fills me, completely, achingly, and I think about our life; about how there was no petition plaintive enough to penetrate your icy defenses; about how tears keep at bay for years now find easy egress, thanks to you; about how you believed that chasing the weft of legislated hedonism, masquerading as "self-realization," was preferable to the bottomless tun of love I poured upon you, consecrating you to me as the one who would see me to the grave, to dust.
My mind, you see, is of a particular kind when it comes to memory; it is steeped in a fixative which will not allow your image to fade -- ever. This is my portion, my burden, my punishment: to have you come to me at odd hours, throwing me out of rest and into darkling grief, silent and alone, the hot streams upon my cheeks reminding me of your comforting warmth as you breathed reposeful, somnolent breath next to me softly and rhythmically -- a lullaby to a haunted mind.
And now we will die at the termini of divergent avenues, you and I. I had but one dream: to feel your lips against mine as I went to my quietus. A dream that is to remain unrealized, though you will attend my death as an image of the dearly departed for the dearly departing, an image of a face that fades only as the flame of my mind is smothered, and Nothingness claims me.
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