#xforevermalik

Beautiful. I want to write something beautiful. I want to write meaningful poems and sonnets that would last decades. I want my words to flow and crash against each other so beautifully, so brilliantly, that it would bring tears to the eyes of my peers. I want to write about her.

Today the grass is unusually green and the sky is bluer than I've ever seen it. So we decided it was the perfect day to stop whatever we were doing, lie in our backyard, and enjoy it.

Now I look at her small frame curling towards mine. Her dainty hands and painted nails clutch at the camera as she desperately takes photos of everything around us. The sun, the clouds, the flowers, the grass, the garden gnomes, me, even. That's what she does. While I write, she takes photographs. Shes fascinated with the idea of capturing a moment in time and having it rest in the palms of your hands. She smiles when she's proud of the shots that she's taken, especially the ones of me, I don't really know why. I always think I look quite silly, a little kooky. My hair a mess, my cheeks flushed, and my mouth in a twisted grin. "You look great, i promise!" she always tells me.

I stare at the upturn of her lips and she doesn't notice. I want to write about her smile. I want to write about how she has several, not just one. I scribble words in my head about how she has one when she meets new people. How she's always shy but trying to be polite. I write about that other one when she doesn't get the joke and tries to pretend that she does. I write poetry about the smile that comes unexpected. I write drabbles of my favorite smile, trying to find the right words to say. That smile, the one when she laughs or tries to stifle a giggle when telling a funny story, the one when she actually wins a game against me or when she develops her photos and hangs them up in the living room. I want to write that well enough for people to imagine and see it the way I see it.

I want to write about her eyes and how they grab at everything so desperately. How they yearn to see as much as possible, as fast as possible. They flicker and they dance and even her eyes smile and it makes me so confused and so infinitely fascinated at the same time. Her eyes follow you and they make you fall in love with them. They switch from emotion to emotion, from sad to happy to completely pissed to pitiful to excited to lost and beyond. And at all of these emotions you know that it's sincere and that she means it. They are the most complicated pair of eyes I have ever come across. And I simply cannot explain how much this frustrates and excites me.

"Look what I made!" she snaps me out of my thoughts. She holds a crown of daisies and dangles it in front of the both of us.

"Pretty." I comment.

She sits up a little. "can I put it on you?"

"What?"

"Did I stutter?" she raises an eyebrow.

I laugh. "fine, fine. Go on." she claps and smiles and I laugh again at how quickly her emotions can change.

I sit up so she can properly place the flowers on my head. "I don't think this headpiece showcases my manliness."

She snorts. "trust me, there wasnt any 'manliness' to begin with." she says as she finishes positioning it.

I do my deepest voice. "I'll have you know that I am the most manly man in the history of like, ever." I am a true poet at times.

This sets her off in a fit of laughter. And I chuckle with her as we both go back to lying down. I watch as her eyes squeeze shut while she continues to cackle. It is then that I think about wanting to write about her laugh, too, because it sounds like rainbows and butterflies and chocolate and honey. Sometimes I laugh softer because i want to hear hers more.

When her giggles subside, I look at the way she blinks up at the sky with wonder and infatuation and I remember how much I want to write about her bubbly personality. I want to write about her spontaneous dances around the living room on Sunday mornings, her witty comebacks, her pure innocence and the way she cares about everyone.

"Hey. Pssst, hey." she nudges my shoulder with hers. "Yo. Pssst. Hey. Psst."

"What?"

"Look." she points up and I try to trace where it's directed. "Look at that cloud."

"the cloud?" I hold back a smile.

"yes, the cloud. That one, right there. Doesn't it look like a dragon? Look at it! It looks just like a dragon!"

I squint and tilt my head. "I don't see it."

She takes her camera and snaps a quick picture. She holds it up and points to her camera screen. "see, this one. Right there. That's the wings, and the tongue, and there, the teeth! And the claws! Do you see it?"

"ooooh. Alright, I get you. Okay."

We stay there and we watch the dragon cloud as it drifts through the sky. After a few minutes, it slowly starts to deteriorate. The wings start to float apart from the torso. The teeth break apart and the claws disappear. We watch until the dragon is completely pulled apart, so much that you wouldn't have guessed it was a dragon in the first place.

And then I turn to her and I see a tear rolling down the side of her face and I wipe it away immediately. "Hey, what's wrong?"

"It's gone."

"It's okay. It's just a cloud. I'm sure there are more dragon clouds out there."

"And then those dragon clouds will be gone too."

"And new ones will come along anyway, so what's the point?"

"Then when there are new ones well all forget about the old dragon clouds. That's not very fair to the old dragon clouds. It's not."

I pause. "There's more to this, isn't there. What is this really about?"

She shrugs. "I was just thinking, the other day, that when I die, we die, basically anyone dies, they won't be remembered, will they? Like I know Elvis is remembered, and Michael Jackson is remembered. But they're legends. We are definitely no John Lennon and Yoko Ono. And eventually even legends will be forgotten. Not many people will remember who Marilyn Monroe is, Or Jimi Hendrix, and everyone of the sort. Like those stupid dragon clouds. We'll be pulled apart until we're nothing and new people will come around and replace the old ones and then they'll be pulled apart too and new new people will replace them and its an endless cycle and the very idea just really brings me down. Someday I'm going to become another corpse in a cemetery. Some vague idea of a person that once was alive."

And I stare at her as she let's out a shaky breath. And I slowly process the things she says.

Nobody is always happy. Nobody. And sometimes the happiest people are also the saddest. When she becomes depressed, she gets extremely philosophical and often thinks too much and too hard. It's difficult to see her like this. But I'm glad she shares these little moments with me. And I do sometimes think she is the most beautiful at these moments. Seeing her so brutally honest and raw is so strange and rare and hauntingly gorgeous.

Some of these days when she thinks too much, it's mostly about being forgotten or about the way she looks. No one is always confident. I observe the way her hair flows down her shoulder. She hates how dark her hair is, how plain and uninteresting. One time she dyed the tips pink, but it's worn off now. I observe the freckles lightly dotting her skin and try to count them. It's impossible to, though. She hates them. Sometimes she cakes on concealer when we go out to dinners and parties. I want to write about how iridescently beautiful she actually is in hopes that she would one day read it. I want her to understand how these curves, these pigmentations, these physical quirks make her perfectly imperfect. I want her to know that they make her who she is. They make her human. And they make her real.

And all I do is wrap my arms around her. She nestles her head into the crook of my neck and cries a little into my shirt. I kiss the top of her head and I think she murmurs a sound of appreciation.

~*~ a lot of years later ~*~

I hold a tattered picture in my hand. It shows a young man, and a young woman in his arms. I look in the mirror and can't fathom how I used to be this youthful boy. I'm not that old. I'm in my mid thirties. But I feel like so much has changed. There are more bags under my eyes, I have a few more wrinkles, my eyes are duller, im not as 'hunky'. And this girl in my arms is no longer here. And now I have a 7 year old boy to look after.

Speaking of him, I hear the door squeak open and find his head poking into the room. "Dad, when are we leaving?"

"in a second, okay?"

He nods and disappears, shutting the door behind him.

I exhale, take one more look at the photograph, and slip it into my pocket.

When I walk outside the house, I see my son already strapped into the front seat. I smile and get into the car, clicking the seatbelt in. "you ready?"

"mmmmmhm!" he says eagerly.

I put the car in drive and we take off, down the road, and into town. We drive for awhile, singing tunes on the radio, wiggling in our spots, talking.

When we reach the venue, I park and get out, opening my sons door for him and i carry him on my back because he asks me to.

As I sneak towards the back, I hear a few people shout when they catch sight of me. but no one wants to go after me, afraid to lose their place in line.

When I enter, the owner tells me how many people are out there and what I should and shouldn't do. I nod, he hands me a sharpie and brings me out.

People wave and a sound of excitement floats around the room. There's a table with two chairs. I take a seat and my son takes the other. He insisted that he came and watched my very first signing.

When his mother died a little over a year ago, the only thing i could think about, were her theories and fears when we were younger about being dead and being pulled apart and that whole dragon cloud idea. So right after her funeral, I did the one thing that i had always wanted to do but never actually found the time to: I wrote about her.

I finally wrote about her. I wrote this whole compilation of stories and drabbles and details and adventures and everything I could. In a year I managed to finish this book all about her, me, my son, too. I wasn't even sure if I was going to publish it. At first I just wanted it to be a personal project. An outlet to make the loss seem less painful. But, with some conviction from family and friends and some more thinking, I did. And wow, was it hard to find a publisher. But I found a guy who loved it and was excited to be the person who would bring my book into the world.

And amazingly, the book got loads of attention. It was highly rated and got more popular as the  months rolled by. And now I am here, sharpie in hand, excited people clutching my - no, I'm not even going to say it's mine - her book close to their chests.

The signing begins and I just get overwhelmed as it goes on. It's not because there are so many books to sign or because it's tiring or because it's humid or because it's difficult to talk to people and sign at the same time. What overwhelms me is how all past and present events seem to hit me at once.

At one point during a break, I look around and see a big poster of the book cover, I see people holding the books, still in line. I see my son smiling at me, I see her just everywhere. I see her name and face all over the books and on the walls and hear people saying it and I'm just taken aback by the whole situation.

And right then, I realize, that now she isn't forgotten. She isn't gone. She's not some vague idea of person like she feared she would become. I have written every detail about her and now people all over the world know who she is and how she used to be. I think that's what she would've wanted.

And although she isn't physically alive, she's still with us in these books and God, for some reason this makes me so unbearable happy that I could just cry.

I do, just a little. No one notices. My eyes water and I smile and I go over to my son and hug him and kiss the top of his head and he doesn't question it.

And I know she's up in heaven or something. I know she's not another corpse in some cemetery. I know she's just somewhere. Some unworldly place where she's young and not sick and free.