"She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word-
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…"
(Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5)
The pendulum clock rings. It's three in the morning. I can't help smiling, my eyes still closed. I have never understood your weird passion for this moment of the night. It was at three in the morning that you used to sneak off in my room. You would sit on my bed, waking me up with that silly voice of yours, a tiny, pleasant whisper in my ear.
"You will have time to sleep when I'm not around anymore. Wake up…"
And then you would have kissed me, without waiting for me to be properly awake –eagerly, fiercely, desperately.
I remember the scent of cinnamon of your shirt. It was a smell which suited you, and which used to come to my sleeping senses as the perfume of a fresh, carefree breakfast in bed. Oh, how I wish our hearts could have truly been light. They were not, but we both put on our farce, hiding our grief, our awareness of your minutes so cruelly destined to flow too quickly, behind our urgent touching of hands, of chests, of souls. You had mine, and I didn't care about yours being taken. I loved you for what you could give me, and you loved me for the same reason. This was the agreement: no promises, no "forever", no tears.
It would be delightful to tell you that I fulfilled those terms. Unfortunately, I'm afraid I'm not as strong as you were. I knew you weren't meant to last, and still your gentle fingers on my nose, on that mark caused by my spectacles which you loved so much to touch lightly, were such a fragile, delicate pleasure, that I would willingly deceive myself. You would have died, I knew it. But it would have happened tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.
Sometimes I pretend that you're still here. I pretend that the cold air on my face is your soft kiss on my eyelids, on my forehead, on my pierced earlobes. I remember your idle attempts to make them heal with the slow, satiny caresses of your tongue. And our fingers would intertwine, so that our palms could whisper the most secret part of our being human the one to the other.
I am such a failure. I do not have tears to shed anymore, but I still feel them running down my cheeks. They have done so almost every night since two months ago. Since the day we lost you forever. I press my lips gently on her forehead, and I hold her tight in my arms. She is such a dainty, fragile moonlight ray on my life. I brush softly her hair with my fingers, and I know that her soul will never be mine. After all, yours was hers. I can't help kissing her lips while she is sleeping so sweetly, protected by these not-so-strong arms of mine. I love her, somehow. And she loves me, somehow. We love the memories which keep our hearts so bound together. We love each other for the perfume of cinnamon which still lingers on her lips, and on my skin.
Her thin fingers reach out for my face, touching softly the light mark on my nose.
I smile.
We love each other because you live in us.