resting place

IT IS WHEN I SEE YOU that I can freely breathe, inhaling gusts of wind that replenishes whatever part of me that decays. But it is when you’re away from my sight that the same wind is sucked away from my struggling lungs. Just like tonight, and what it will be like tomorrow, and the night after this. I have to gasp because I want to know how this ordeal will end. I know when the end comes; you’ll not be here with me holding my hand. I can’t fully fathom the thought but it’s a truth that I’m trying to learn and to accept. I want to know the greater purpose for this loss; the grand plan behind your permanent absence, from me and from this world.

What measure of time will it take to escape the agony brought by grief and sadness? Will absolute healing come hand-in-hand with acceptance? These questions reels in my head in every moment I succumb into that pure solitude, looking deep into the sharp eyes of melancholy, trying not to flinch against the pain nor blink in the overwhelming darkness in front of me. Stifling a moan and faking a smile are some of the skills that I have yet to master. But what’s the point of doing so? I can be calm as the deepest ocean on the outside, but my insides is harboring a gathering storm, so destructive that I am surprised that my heart can still have the strength to beat, expelling blood through veins. And because I thought it had already shut down, the same moment yours had stopped, never to beat again.

I’m here, standing once again on the ground of your final resting place—that will become mine too when my life finally ends one day. I can’t wait for that day to come, not because I want to die, but the thought of embracing death is very seductive thinking it’s the only way to linger in your presence once more. I know you’d want me to walk the face of this earth for as long as I can, and to find my purpose besides the purpose of loving you for the rest of my life. For this, I’ll continue to walk for you, and breathe for you, and live—looking upon those memories; vivid images that inspires and crushes me at the same time.

The drizzle softened the grassy earth beneath me, falling and gliding like stardust in the yielding evening air. I am holding a bouquet of white calla lilies you loved so much, scalding my hand in a desperate hoping that it is your hand in mine instead. My eyes burn in my losing fight against the inevitable stream of tears. I called out your name in the wind, breathing it in; breathing what was left of your existence lost in the even flow of soft moist air. My eyes gaze upon the blurring lights of the stars and to the wet granite carved with your beautiful name. I whispered the name as my voice trembled, broken and stained with longing and powerlessness. The resonance of the words felt painful on my throat and tasted bitter on my tongue. My body shook and my knees buckled, landing on the moist ground. I let the tears fall—crystal droplets silently hidden in the darkness, drunk by the ground that covered your bones, and obscured by towering tombstones of the dead. You are now one of them, hence, these death-scented lilies. I will receive this kind of flowers someday when I become the ash that will hover above you-- my true resting place.

I will be forever thankful for the love that had awakened my heart but unfortunately, had stopped yours.