It feels like summer was yesterday, and maybe it was. But looking back, it's been months. Months filled with chaos and mess, and floods, literal and metaphoric, within and without. Months filled with sweat dripping down my face and neck, not your touches and kisses. I hate to think about you this way, but sometimes I can't help it. It's been so long, so give me some grace. It's been months filled with scorching sun, with yellowed-out grass, and sizzling silence. Especially silence. Silence I tried to fill, in a hearty way, but it feels like everywhere I went, every place I've been, there was an empty space next to me that was reserved under your name. It feels like no one could ever fill it, not partly, not completely.
It's been months and I'm thinking of the conversations we couldn't have, and probably never will, so I guess I just keep talking to myself. In my head, I'm still saying things to you. And it's pathetic, but I can't help it. You were my best friend, and I'm scared you always will be, even if you're not right here, not right now. You were my best friend, and I still wish I could tell you things, like dumb stuff about my day, or the groundbreaking realisations I have about the world, or just how I feel. And I wish you could tell me all your stupid jokes, and I wish it was that easy. But we never had it easy, and I'm thinking whose fault is that. Maybe no one's. Maybe it's timing, maybe it's fate. Or maybe all of those things. So I'm just going to keep talking to you in my head, my invisible-immortal friend. Like right now, I’m telling you how I feel the full moon deep in my bones, yet again, how I can hear whispers from behind the veil, how I can see memories frozen in still frames.
I wish I could delete those frames and unfeel ghosts. Like crackling background noise, like static on TV, always omnipresent, imperceptible spirit that is breathing and not, that is more than a memory, less than you. It's just as palpable and lucid as vague: it's just as hidden and untouchable as visible. I'll always grieve what we didn't have, and what we will never have. The past and future, both dead and still alive: still in the present, still mortal. I have to endure, and stand the test of time.
So I close my eyes, and think back to summer, and remember bright yellow days, orange and fuchsia, full of life and hope. And now, I open my eyes and it's pitch-black. It's not even midnight, and the full moon is the only presence I can hold onto with shaky hands. I know what's coming, and I know it will hurt. I know the piles of leaves and the snow will cover my wounds, and ease the cold days and nights, but at what cost. It feels like yesterday that I last saw you, and the seasons changed, but my feelings didn't. And now I think that the memory of you became sacrosanct: something holy, something unworldly and my only redemption. I blink and winter has arrived.
And here you are, still. Like an evergreen, I know you will survive the winter, endure the cold and the darkness, withstand the passing of time; you're immortal. Even if ice and frost paint your needles, even if snow buries you until you're barely visible on the horizon, you will be there. Standing tall in your glory, lush green under the white, flourishing, undecayed, eternal. Like our bond. It's been months, it's been years, and look what changed: only the seasons. Never us. Never you and never me.
You said we passed, but look at all these cuts all over my body, still throbbing from pain. You stabbed me, over and over, and at the same time, covered my wounds with your resin, to soothe me and heal me, to revive me and rebuild me. Stinging and pricking bruises, all out in the open for everyone to see. My best friend, my evergreen, my rosin, my sanctity. It's true when they say the very thing that kills you is also what saves you. I’d like to think in months, the coming snow will turn wounds into white scars. I'd like to think you redeemed me, but only time will tell.
And here I am, being so vulnerable, so nauseating, so human. See? Only a human could feel a thousand things at the blink of an eye; only a mortal being could be killed by love and then ascend by that same force right after. Only love can tie you to me, this way, in the most horrifying, loathsome, monstrous way. I hate it so much that I can't help but revere and kneel before the sheer violence of it. And I hate to think about this, and about you, but maybe in a few months, or a few years, the fury in me will subside to something akin to pure grace and mercy. Resin dried on my skin, but your name still sacrosanct on my lips. Now, and forever...
