Dearest Carla,
I don't know why I am writing you when wherever you are, I cannot reach you. Although, if you keep your promise to watch me then maybe you will read it after all.
I found your body not long after your death. You looked just like you were sleeping but when I touched your skin, the warmth you once radiated was long gone. Maybe it had gone even before that, maybe I took that with me. I guess I'll never know.
There's so much I want to tell you yet my hands are shaking so much that I am struggling to hold the pen. Darling, I wish you would have waited. If you had, you might have known I was on my way, probably when you were writing that letter. The journey up here felt endless but I thought it might be worth it just to see your eyes again. I didn't get the chance. Oh Carla, your eyes. They were my weakness, as though if I looked into them I was looking into a galaxy of endless, confusing feelings that I could not ever quite fathom.
I feel like you haven't really gone. I feel like it's not possible for you to be gone whilst I am still in existence. I didn't tell you enough but you seem to ouze from me, seep from my skin as though I am made up of tiny pieces of you. I think that's why you felt so empty, my love. I think when you loved, you loved so fiercely that you left pieces of you in everyone you ever cared about. It's tragically beautiful I suppose. But I am learning quickly that death isn't beautiful. Grief isn't poetic or beautiful either. It is just black. It's the darkest black you can ever imagine Carla but I know you are the last person I must explain that to.
To love you was an honour but to be loved in return was a privilege that not many will ever understand. You were like a dream that changed daily, never staying in one place for long. You were always right within my grasp and yet so very far away. You were a mystery but when my fingers traced your naked skin and you sighed my name breathlessly against my neck, I think I solved it.
Your letter made little sense to me. How can you imagine that your death would hurt me. Hurt is not a word that exists in my vocabulary, sweetheart. Not since you left. There isn't a word to describe the physical torment, the relentless, overwhelming agony. I guess it is better to have loved you and known you than to never have had you at all but that is little comfort to me now. Nothing is any comfort to me anymore. Except for the brief few minutes I manage to force myself to breathe and listen to old voicemails you have left me. Your voice soothes an ache for only a moment. I am in your flat, in your bed, the same place I found you. When I close my eyes and breathe you in, everything smells of you and all at once it's not true.
The emptiness of your side of the bed tells me it is.
I would choose you. In any lifetime, in any world, I would find you Carla and I would choose you. I hope you understand that that is why I am doing this. I am choosing you. I think you know I did many bad things in my time but the worst was letting it take your death for me to put you first. I didn't do it when you were alive but now I will do it in your death. I will follow you, wherever you are and I will find you.
I will choose you.
I am being selfish to those I leave behind but that is a trait you have always known to be mine and something you did not try to change. You were not like the ones before but then I don't think you were like anyone that has ever lived. You are, were an enigma. And you were mine. You were selfish too. So very, heartlessly fucking selfish Carla. That will be the first thing I say when we are reunited but not before I force you into my arms and hold you with a need you have not felt before.
I think I'll see you soon, my love. Sooner than you bargained for.
Wait for me, baby.
Yours always, in life and in death,
Peter
