I wonder if people realize that goodbye might be the last thing they say to someone. Those less fortunate, of course, don't even have the chance to say goodbye.
There is something beautiful about sacrifice, and there is something hideous about suicide. I wonder if he knows that he has achieved both. So, what is it? Beautiful or hideous?
At funerals, everyone cries and talks about what a great person the one who's lying in the coffin used to be. Everyone talks about what colors they liked, what time of day appealed to them, what they smelled like, how they're happy in Heaven. No one screams and cries and tells them how much they'll be missed, how horrible it is that they've left everyone behind. We're expected to be on our best behavior and be calm and collected when we stare into that person's cold, dead face.
I'd cry for him, but I don't even know where he is.
These flowers don't bloom without him. I hope he knows that. I hope he knows how angry I am, and how sad, and how hopeful I was that I'd open my door and find him standing there, exhausted from travel but alive, and how I dreamed he'd wind me in his arms and everything will burst into spring. The rain will fall and quench the thirst of these buds, who, in turn, will explode into a display of gorgeous petals, and when my tears fall, they will wash away all the bitterness.
I was hoping for his safe return. His smile, his sparkling, mischievous eyes. A kiss. An embrace.
It's funny how much a person can die in four years and still be breathing.
I was a fool to find annoyance in the smallest things - the swagger of his walk, the way he tossed his hair, the arrogant smile, the way he flexed his muscles when he knew I was watching. Now, I look to rays of the sky, the patterns of the stars, the shapes of the clouds, the ripples in a puddle, salt spilled in the shapes of letters, all in vain, but all in hopes that I would see his face.
I miss the whisper of his touch, the blush of his eyes, the sting of his kiss; I miss what little time we had together, I miss what I used to scorn.
Life always gives us a present that we don't want, but we have to smile and say thank you anyway.
When I can no longer remember what color his eyes were, or which way he looked first when we crossed a street, or the faint scent of cologne on his neck, I walk the roads we used to, pretending that my hand is in his. When I see a flower I know we planted, I appreciate the fact that it is still living. When I close my eyes and it's not his face that I see, I return to the church where we met, a place so holy and pure in a world so full of sin; a sanctuary where I can go when I feel I've lost myself, a place where its frail walls have the ability to keep out sorrow, a place where I can still trace the outline of where he lay when he fell, a place where he's all around me, not like he returned, but like he never left at all.