As we know it...

The world was falling apart, but we didn't care. Everything around us falling down around our feet, but we didn't care. There was more than enough to go around. Each time our lips met and parted and met again the world seemed to fade farther and farther away. I couldn't remember the last time I cried. The last time I felt alone. The last time I pictured myself as an old man, alone and trying to remember some long lost love from his youth. Your hand moved from my arm to my neck, twisting my hair between your fingers. There was nothing between us. Nothing to hold back. I spent hours holding you close to me, hoping I'd never have to endure a world without you again. You mirrored my every move, back and forth we'd play, the danger growing more and more, but we didn't care. I felt like a child inside. I felt small and loved and whole. Finding a lost toy, hugging your mother, or taking a bath in the kitchen sink. Minutes turned into hours and hours into days. It could never end. I was positive breathing was pointless if you weren't close.

"I'll always love you. There's nowhere I could be without you."

I couldn't muster a single word. The words I had once spun through my mind like a twine wrapped around barbed wire were lost to me. Scrambled somewhere inside the chemical reaction forming in my brain. Dopamine traveling from one synapse to another, I knew I loved you too. Your hair hanging down in your eyes, I see nothing but your mouth, nothing but everything. Each strand clinging perfectly to the one next to it, forming each perfect lock hanging in your face, meeting your skin so softly. I brush it away, I need to see those dark brown eyes staring back into mine. I need the windows to your soul open and clear.

I hold you close, I sleep. Deep and dark and complete. In these dreams I'm trapped. My dreams are not dreams at all. I can't move. Like I walked into wet cement and decided to wait around until it dried. I watch you leave. I watch you leave me standing there. Alone again. The fear already building in my body, I feel the adrenaline begin to pulse, my hands begin to shake. Darkness. In and out. I see you huddled below me. Darkness. Pure and complete.



My dreams fade faster and farther from me these days. I wake up in this place, not knowing where I am and wonder: how did I get here? How long have I been waking up here not recognizing these people surrounding me. I'm 89, I live with people I don't know, and I love a woman I haven't seen or touched in 65 years. It only lasted one night, but how could something so real last any longer than that? It wasn't love that allows for anything else. It didn't allow for kids, a lawnmower, and a golden retriever. Nations have been built and destroyed by less than what happened then. I don't expect you to understand. I don't even expect you to care. I know I'm close now. I know I won't be around much longer and I've made my peace with that. What I do want you to understand is that these things you seem to care so little about and treat so frivolously can haunt you. They will haunt you. I promise. I wake each morning crying, not fully understanding why. My dreams fade faster and farther from me these days. I know you don't understand. I know you probably don't even care. This couldn't possibly happen to you.

After all these years I'm not entirely sure it even happened to me. I welcome sleep, seeing her as I once knew her. I see the possibility in her eyes and all the love I couldn't possibly contain. I rise every morning remembering the way I left her. Remembering the way the blood trickled down her chin landing softly on her breast. The love her eyes had been filled with changed to horror and disbelief. I'm 89, I live with people I don't know, and I love a woman I haven't seen or touched in 65 years.