solace

“I barely need to breathe for you to spread your fingers over my chest and count my ribs the way a child would count stars. But of course, you’re no longer here, are you? I am one to know that life isn’t fair, evidence carefully labeled and marked, ready to be cross-examined at first command. Exhibit one: the jaws of the past. Exhibit two: the ghosting pain. Exhibit three: the traitor of a body. Exhibit four: you, gone. Exhibit five: everything and everything. In this house that we built together, I was an empty room that your name filled up, and living felt so much less like a sin. Eyes closed I can almost hear you say again, Five minutes, and I open my mouth to reply as always, Five, only to choke and claw on barren dirt. Every night is a funeral in which I survive, and you die again and again. I will not lie and say I do not miss the press of a blade against my skin. Because I do— you know I do. But every time I breathe is a different kind of bruising, bleeding. If I wanted pain, I would call your name instead: Willem, Willem. What’s more painful than knowing that you won’t come to me? But I will allow myself other lies, like this green sweater I still wrap myself with for the memory of your arms around me, for the ghost of your touch. And I want you to see, as much as I would hate for you to see, that I want so much to be haunted. I pretend you will come back, and I write to you the way we always did— Dear comrade; Dear comrade— messages turning into birds that always know their way home. And I wait for the door to creak open, wait for you to smile at me again, and I’ll tell you how much I missed you. Oh, I miss you. Grant me this lie. I beg you.”