Where can I find you?

You seem to be everywhere. In my dreams, in my thoughts, everywhere I go. Yet you are nowhere Completely disappeared, like a phantom.

Everywhere I turn you are both there and not. I see you in the corner of my eye, but when I move to see you, there’s nothing but emptiness

What is death?

Tell me, what does it mean to die? to be dead?

At what point can I mourn?

For a lost love

For a dear friend

For all those people whose hearts have not stopped But who have, nonetheless, ceased to exist.

“She is dead to me” they say.

But there she sits

Her heart beating

Her lungs breathing

Her self, being

But it is not for her body that they grieve

It is for Her

The intangible and ephemeral self

Who is now alive only in the memories she created

For how long can a heartbeat be withheld For it to sufficiently be called a death? Must my heart stop at all?

Or can it simply beat anew?

The skin with which I touch and feel has all died and fallen

And then grown again and replaced itself

The thoughts with which I examine the world have all been forgotten

And then relearned once more.

I have died a thousand time

And have resurrected with each one

Leaving me to ask

What is death?

Does the child who once shared my name still exist?

Is she alive in me?

Through my name, my eyes, my smile.

Is she eternally preserved in her product?

Does the oak tree retain the acorn from which it sprouted? Or did she die that same night that I was born? Perhaps even long before then.

Did she cling to my existence as I slowly came to be

Fading away herself

But

fading into me?

Or she became nothing Nothing but a disillusioned memory

Of a girl who know pretends to exist

But only faintly

A stain on the pages of a story

The story of the abstracted “me”

I am haunted by a past that wasn’t mine

By the ghost of only a half-person

Who would never know their power

Her death is my life,

her demolition my foundation.

and when, finally, my heart beats its last beat, my absence shall make room for new life

When the ashes of man are left behind, we will call that our demise

But when, from those ashes, there blooms a strong oak tree

Nourished by our enriching decomposition

Can we call that death? Can we call that life?

Drag me down to the depths of despair and hold my head below the water. The closer I am to death, the closer I am to life

I feel the blood drip down my arms and bless the gods for the gift of feeling. Ruby red stains dripped across the floor. A disturbing exhibit of the proof of my existence. Licking my fingers to get a taste of the life which I crave to live

The chill of emptiness bites at my throat. Leaving my tongue stuck frozen to the inside of my cheek. No crying out for help. No way for me to speak.

The warmth of love burns my skin. Leaving a trail of scars across my body as it sizzles and pops. Two fronts colliding to create the perfect storm

Nothingness surrounds me, and numbness is all that I know. To rise from the ashes of my past like the majestic phoenix may put an end to this painful meaninglessness. But just the same effect can come from the great fall into oblivion, saving me from the excruciating search for a purpose that may never be revealed

“The harassment and the measures against Cuba are inhuman and persistent

This has to stop.”