Paper thin skin stretching pallid over sharp bones. Eyes beseeching me to let her go, the whites long turned yellow, blood vessels snaking red across the surface. This is what she has become, this apparition of the one I love. Her fingers like claws in the palm of my hand, clutching tight with the pain of the last days of her life.
I close my eyes and see in my mind the pinkness of her cheeks, the sparkle in her pale blue eyes. The joy she had in living, the way her entire being would light up when I leaned over to kiss her, to touch my fingers to her skin. Her soft, warm, alive skin.
In my mind she is in her wedding gown. Frothy lace, the dress her mother had made for the most important day of our lives. I picture her walking slowly towards me, irises in her hand, purple against white. I recall the smile on her lips, the way she mouthed I love you silently as she slipped her hand into mine. The vows we made to each other, to love and to cherish until death. I meant them then, and I mean them even more today. Unto death and beyond. Love does not die so easily.
I remember that love reflected in her face, from the minute she would turn to me in the morning, eyes half closed with sleep, to the darkness of the deepest night and her body wrapped tightly around mine, entangled so completely that I could not tell where I began and where she ended.
Now, all too well, I know the answer to that unthinkable question.
I cannot go on without her; I am nothing. How can there be life when she has none? How can I continue, breath by breath, step by step through all the days of my own existence? She is the creator of my world, the meaning of the song in my soul.
What is she but skin, but heart and bone and flesh. As are we all; too human, too fragile. What little strength I have lies in magic – perhaps I can use this to capture her essence, the blood that flows through her veins even now as she lies motionless on our bed. Maker knows I have tried to heal her, tried to cast out the darkness in her body, but I have failed her. This vessel I will need to let go, in the hope that I will be able to retain her spirit until I can find a way, a way to bring her back to me. My life can have no purpose until then.
Her breath rattles in her throat as I press my mouth to hers, taste the sourness of her lips and whisper promises I intend to keep.
Our love will never die.