Dear Goodbye

I was less human than the rest.

It took me a little under three hours to get over your death. The noisy pace of this new world helps.

Theoretically, there should be guilt. I chose to leave when you were dying. Cancer kills families, not people. If I stayed, two lives would have been wasted.

Fuck. That escaped my tongue quickly.

Were you though? Happy with your life? You gave up your pen for a ring too early. Ink suited you better. It would have kept you sane, maybe even alive...did I tell you that before I left? Write more? You and your words were a marriage more suited than you and me, although my bluntness did serve your writing, didn’t it?

The cafe we met at is still living around me; their espresso is still sharp and neat. Johnny’s great-grandson served me. Genes shape up over time, huh? This boy is a looker!

Don’t flatter yourself...I didn’t come here to resurrect you. I came here looking for me. But our stories are so mingled that I can’t read them apart now.

Everyone is so engaged with themselves. Personally, I love the little bubbles they live in, but I don’t have a phone to speak to...yet. Their screens walk with them.

The food on the other table looks great, like little mountains of conquest on a plate. They eat for two! Maybe their food doesn’t reach them? Maybe they eat till their full but not satisfied? You would have read them better, I’m sure.

There’s a neon sign curved into artistic submission where the paint chipped off the walls. There are people taking pictures of themselves alone in front of it. I suppose that is one kind of memory.

They said the others hadn’t survived the culture shock. They begged to be made back into ice so that they didn’t feel the bizarre isolation of being alive. But, I’ve lived with myself for so long nothing from the outside moves me. In fact, the frozen wait felt the same as being awake now. Maybe my blood is too cold for my breath...

We were young. Sometimes, I feel we wrote our age off to love. The less we were ourselves, the less I could be for you.

I didn’t expect to live through this though. I thought I would sleep my way to death. You know I hated long goodbye seasons. That’s why I never drove you to the airport; I had to feel you leaving the entire way there. I was forced to live the silence pregnant with separation.

I figured, if they put me to sleep, I wouldn’t have to say goodbye to you then.

The thing about changing worlds is that nothing changes if you stay the same.

I ran because I couldn’t lose you, slept so that I wouldn’t feel the pain but here I am crying over my words again.

Goodbye, my dear.

My dear, goodbye…