cherry

I couldn’t move at first. I just stood there, frozen, the cold seeping into my skin, as if my body couldn’t make sense of it. You’re right here, closer to me than you’ve been in months, but you’re not here at all. How can you be? How can this patch of earth, this piece of stone with your name carved into it, possibly hold everything you were?

I took a step closer, and it felt like walking into a dream I couldn’t wake up from. My legs felt heavy, like they didn’t want to carry me forward, like they knew that if I got too close, I couldn’t keep pretending this wasn’t real. But I did it anyway.

Your name is there. Your dates. And suddenly it’s not just stone anymore; it’s you. It’s you, and it’s not you, and the world tilts under my feet because it doesn’t make sense. You were larger than life, and now you’re this—a name and a space and a silence so heavy I can’t breathe.

I kneel down, my hands trembling as I brush the frost off the stone. It’s so cold, colder than I thought it would be, and I wonder if you felt this cold when you left us. I wonder if you were afraid, or if you knew how much we loved you. How much I still do.

“I’m here,” I whisper, even though it feels stupid to say. But I have to say it. I have to believe that somehow, you’ll know. That somehow, you can hear me, even though I know you can’t.

I don’t know how long I stayed there, my hand resting on the stone like I could reach through it, like I could pull you back to me. The wind bit at my face, the cold settling into my bones, but I didn’t care. None of it mattered.

I thought coming here would make it feel real, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t feel real that you’re right here beneath my feet. It doesn’t feel real that I’ll never hear your laugh again, or see you smile, or tell you all the things I didn’t get to say.

When I finally stood, my legs buckled. I turned to leave, but I couldn’t. Not yet. I looked back one more time, hoping, praying, that I’d see you standing there, waving me off the way you always used to.

But there was only the grave. Only the cold. Only the impossible truth that you’re here, but not here.