Just a Silly Lil' Guy

This is a deeply personal letter to the LOML, he passed away in April of 2020 due to complications involving brain cancer. I was deeply moved and inspired by Gigi Perez's Sailor Song. I miss him very much every day and I wish I could kiss him on his lips again. If you like sad sappy stuff, feel free to read it.

Song Prompt: Sailor Song

I sleep so I can see you, because I hate to wait so long.

I sleep, so I can see you. Because, I hate to wait so long.

5 years with out you. 5 years since I lost you.

Existence with out you is long, arduous and leaves me with an emptiness so deep it feels like it will never be filled again. Just 5 years ago, I could hold you, kiss you, touch you, hear you, speak with you, feel the heat of your breath, hear the beat of your heart through the warmth of your chest and breath in the familiarity of your scent. I could melt into your arms, feel the comfort of your lips on mine and the way you would shower me with loving words. Just 5 years ago, you walked behind the veil that separates our worlds and I was left here. Cold, empty, and broken.

Even though the weight of loss bears down on me, I would not change the way I feel about losing you. To love you was the greatest privilege I have ever known, to receive your love was the most beautiful gift I could have ever hoped to receive. The pain of it all was worth it. I am a better person for having known, loved and been loved by you. You brought light, laughter and new perspective into my world. When we met, I was a selfish, brash, obnoxiously self-righteous and ill tempered young woman but you saw me differently and told me so. You saw me as an intelligent, funny, quick witted and beautiful young woman who was also definitely immature and you made sure I knew how much you loved and fully embraced every bit of who I was, flaws and all. Gods above, I was so tragically luck to have met such a brilliant, funny man with a heart as big and deep as the ocean. I swear, you literally reached in and touched my soul… and I yours. Anywhere you were, felt like home to me. You generously gave me a safe space to express all of my emotions, vent all of my frustrations, to show you the heights of my joy and the depths of my sorrows. I poured every bit of my heart and soul to you and you drank in every last drop with an open mind and open arms. In turn you let me see yours too, all your pain and suffering, all the beautiful weird corners of your mind. How beautiful your mind, heart and soul were, inexperienced as I was. I tried my best to take all of you in as you had done with me, with an open mind and open arms. To embrace all of you with my entire being, sometimes it was hard to tell where I ended and you began. I felt like we were two sides of the same coin.

I drank in every smile, every laugh, clung to every word you said. There was no one more interesting, no one more brilliant and no one as safe and warm as you were. Your warmth changed me, helped me grow in ways I didn’t know I needed to. Your genuine love for life and will to live was alien to me. I was someone who wanted nothing more than to fade from existence, but when I met you that had slowly started to change and all the false confidence I wore as a mask most of my life… started to just become real parts of me.

We had stood in awe of each other’s radiance. You were the sun and I was the moon, beholding each other’s beauty as equals. Neither better or worse than the other. For the first time in my life, I was able to ask for love from someone and you were there, giving your love willingly with out resistance. I wanted all your love and attention and you were indefinitely willing to give me anything I sought from you. We filled each other’s cups, moved in perfect harmony.

You saw me as an equal, as a person. I tended to put you on a pedestal, as someone unattainably perfect to me and you would jump down from that pedestal to happily knock it down to show me that we stood on equal footing. Partners, friends, lovers. Equals.   

All the love I held and still hold in my heart for you, has made it that much harder to bear the loss of you. How could I even begin to rebuild the devastation left by the absence of you. Worse yet that it was an absence that was no one’s fault and that neither of us could avoid. The universe itself was parting us, I felt so betrayed, but not by you. Betrayed by the gods, the cosmos, the universe. I cursed them all in the wake of the news that you would die and later after you had died. I screamed into the nothingness, I cried, sobbed, stopped speaking, I slept, I couldn’t and wouldn’t understand why you had been ripped away from me, from life so cruelly. Nothing was going to bring you back to me or this world. The veil wasn’t going to magically lift and let me pull you back into the land of the living, no matter how much screaming, crying, or starring into space I did. I wasn’t Hercules, I couldn’t dive into the river Styx to retrieve you. The thought of being able to do nothing was unbearable. But to honor you and your memory I forced myself to march forward.

I tried to emulate that same kindness and generosity that you so freely gave to others… now, 5 years later I have realized that what I thought was your kindness and generosity was actually my own. I have started to see what you saw now; I am able to value what you had valued in me. The imprint you left on my heart and soul is still there and will forever remain there, I am absolutely certain of that.

I am older than you now. It feels weird, but I know I will never feel bad about aging ever again. I might joke about it with friends, but I feel blessed to be able to live another year longer because of you. I will keep my promise to you and find my happiness in this life, live out my dreams in hopes that my art will reach the heavens for you to see. But I’m not perfect in that promise, I cannot simply forget about you or stop wanting to see you. So, I sleep in hopes of seeing you in my dreams. I sleep, so that one more day passes towards being able to see you again. One less day of waiting to see you again. I know the day I see you again will be the most bitter sweet reunion I could think up. But until then I will live in pursuit of happiness, I will fill my life with my friends and family. Maybe I will find love with another person again. I will pursue my dreams. I will live for me and I will live to full fill my promise to you.

Forever yours,