Safe on a Higher Plane
I lay in my bed thinking about the same thing I had for the past seven months. It's funny how the brain can remember things in such incredible detail. Each memory could cut into me like a knife. I look over the clock and see the time, 3:30 a.m. I'm not going to be sleeping again tonight. I get up and go to my notebook.
"A world of bright flowers turns to black stone." I write down fighting back my tears. Another lyric with no belonging. I cannot remember the last time I had even sang after the death. Sauli. The name rings into my soul and causes my skin to turn to frostbite.
"We can escape to a higher plane." I say, choking on my words. It was from a song that I had written about him. He knew how much he meant to me. When Sauli heard it the first time he started tearing up and went into this big speech about how much he loved me, spoken in his adorable accent. That was one of the best memories we shared. I start smiling but that is crashed down by the memory of his passing. Tears start to reappear in my eyes. I start scratching myself, reopening wounds that I had put on my skin to try to get rid of the pain. I had to stop thinking about him. He was gone but it felt like so was I.
It was an unforgiving night in November, the month of our anniversary and we went out one night with our friends. We had a few drinks so my memory is a bit blurred. All I remember is not knowing where he was. Where Sauli was. I started franticly searching and asking everyone in a mad panic. They read the fear on my face and Daniela tried to calm me down. I started tearing up because I didn't know what was happening, and I am an emotional drinker. But I ran outside to try to find him. I was in the middle of the street when I saw Sauli from a distance. I ran up shouting but when he turned around there was blood gushing down his throat and there was a man in a hood running away. The part that kills me the most is that I never found out who that man was or the reasons for his actions. When Sauli fell to the ground, I caught him. I could tell by the depth of the cuts that it was fatal. I spent my whole life trying to protect him but in that moment all I could do was cry and plead him to say with me. He told me to sing so I chose the song I wrote about him.
We can escape to higher plane, in Nirvana stay, where the dreamers lay, and I'll lay you down, Safe on a higher plane, in Nirvana stay, where the dreamers lay and I'll lay you down, lay you down.
He started to close his eyes and I sang faster with more gasped breathes.
Oh we don't need any diamonds or gold, let the mystic and cryptic unfold as we fly.
His last words were, "I love you." I didn't know if he heard me say I love you back. I don't know if he heard all my tears, all my screaming, all my begging to stay with me. I didn't know if he heard Daniela's screams when she found him dead in my arms. The pain she must have felt when I refused to leave him.
That song I sang him, it was meant to mean that when we embraced we were in spiritual perfection. We were so in love that we could be taken into another world. But when I heard myself sing it when he was at death's door I understood it could also mean that even though he's dead, he's now in a higher plane looking down at me. He's away from the harsh reality and expectations in the world. He's constantly dreaming in the clouds above me. I finally go to sleep and dream of the day I'll be safe in Nirvana stay with him.