Ashes, Ashes

He’s dead.

I can’t feel the phone in my hand anymore, just as I can’t hear the worried voice on the line.  I find that I can’t even take a breath, when did my throat have the chance to get so dry?  My eyes are burning now and I can’t seem to stop shaking …the cellular is on the floor and I focus on it, my brow crinkling in confused thought as I try to remember when I dropped it and whom I was talking to.  My chest hurts, I’ve never known such pain …there is a terrible gaping hole within me now; an emptiness that has manifested from nothing and it seems content to remain.  Wasn’t there something there before? Something warm and giddy and delightful in my heart?  The floor seems really close now …oh, I see, I’ve fallen to my knees …my cheeks are wet …when did I start to cry?  Moaning I arch backwards, kneeling on the hard, cold floor, and I notice the strain my feet and ankles feel as my weight settles on them and twists them in an uncomfortable manner against the wood floor.  My temples throb and my hands instinctively fly up to massage away the pain, but then I realize that I still haven’t drawn a breath yet, my throat closed up as I gasp between choking sobs.

            Am I going to die?  Drowning within my own grief?  Wait, grief for what?  For whom?  What happened again?  My stomach heaves violently, acidic bile rising in the back of my throat but I can’t throw up since I can’t breath and besides, I’m on the floor of my kitchen …I just swept and washed these floors today.  But I dry heave anyway, and somehow I come to understand that I am breathing, barely, in between the bitter tears and attempts made by my lunch to escape.  My heart is beating too, loudly within the barren expanse once filled with love and adoration, but my heart beats without a purpose as I bleed from these invisible wounds that have stricken me. 

            There is someone here now …perhaps I was talking to him on the phone?  But no, it is a girl …do I know her?  Did she call me?  Oh, blast my teary eyes for I cannot see!  She wants me to do something; I think she wants me to talk to her.  Foolish girl, can’t she understand that I’m lucky to be breathing?  How selfish of her to demand that I satisfy her curiosity by speaking.  Oh wait, she wants to help me up …I’m curled into a ball of sorts, the fetal position …why?  Am I vulnerable?  What has happened?  Why am I confused?  Why am I so lost?  There was something …but I can’t remember …I had been talking on the phone and making dinner …what happened?  My tongue is heavy and my mouth tastes foul …oh, I suppose I wasn’t dry heaving after all.  I don’t remember actually throwing up though.  Why won’t this girl leave me alone?  Doesn’t she understand that I don’t want company right now?  She’s just making things worse and I don’t understand!  Why do I feel as though part of me is dead, ripped away and gone forever?  I am lost …I am alone, where is my other half?  Where is my life?  Why am I doomed to endure on this earth without him at my side?

            Wait.  Is that it?  Is that why I am being cradled in her arms, too weak to push her away as I continue to weep and gag on vomit?  I know I must look disgusting right now and ugly, but I don’t particularly care.  Some small, detached part of me wonders if I ever will care again.  He is gone.  I know this now with a certainty.  I am not certain how I knew this in this first place, but this is most definitely crushing.  Bastard.  How dare he die?  Bastard.  How can he leave me without letting me say goodbye and without giving me one last kiss?  It’s not fair.  I never wanted to say goodbye, now I suppose I never will.  How dare he!  I won’t ask why, no one will tell me that, there never is a reason why anyone should die, but I am curious as to how.  One moment everything was fine and dandy and the next …an explosion of anguish and agony.  I never thought I could hurt so much …then again, I never thought I’d loose him.  Bastard.  Why is he making me curse him now when all I want is for him to lift me into his arms and kiss away my tears, wash my face and carry me to our bed and tell me that I was mistaken.  I love him so …I miss him badly and I’m slowly becoming aware of a numbness sweeping through me, stealing away my emotions and locking away my pain.  It’s all still there, I know, and it will never be truly buried …it will never truly fade away …but my heart is broken, my soul tore in two again. 

            I think maybe I am dying.  I know for a fact that life goes on for most people after a loved one dies, even a husband and lover such as mine …but somehow I don’t think that I can do it.  Life always looked so much brighter with him there, holding my hand and tickling my neck with butterfly kisses.  Oh gods, if ever such beings exist, I pray to you to take me from this cruel torment!  I feel so cold, I am shivering even though I am frozen and my eyes are so heavy to lift.  I think I am panting now, ragged pulls of air that persist even though my will is broken.  My body may never forgive me for this, I know it was young and healthy and probably wanted to go on being such, but too bad.  I feel like being selfish for once, I don’t like this pain, I don’t like this horrible loneliness that is closing in and I most certainly do not like the prospect of going on without him.  Besides, I don’t think such a thing is possible for me.  Soul mates ought never to part after reuniting and I’ll be damned if I loose my one true love after searching for so long and going through so much to be with him.  I hope no one minds, but I still can’t find it in me to care.  I don’t know what comes after this, but anything is better than what I am feeling …but …that’s right, I’m not feeling anything anymore …and the sweet, gentle black bliss that always seemed such a remote thing …I welcome it with open arms.  You may have left me, you may have shattered my heart, but don’t think I’m letting you off so easily.  If there is one thing I’m not letting go, it’s my love, and I will find you again, no matter how many eons may pass and how many eternities may come.