And you would sing soft, a note as pure and thin as spider's silk above the flustered wail of the sirens. I would hold your hand and kiss your throat in the attic room with the dried flowers hung from the ceiling like wilted promises. Your hands were thin and oh so pale and I could see the blue paths of your veins beneath your soft skin. If I had held them too tightly, would they have shattered on the age-worn floor boards? I never found out, you were too precious. I treated you like priceless, antique crystal. I loved it when the light hit you; you sent it back with cascades of colors, like the inside of an abalone shell. I knew I loved you, but the words turned to ash in my throat whenever you smiled. I don't know if I ever said them to you, but you knew. You knew I was bound by your voice and your hands and you eyes. It is the eyes that haunt me; the eyes I see in the dark when I cannot sleep. Those glinting green eyes that put emeralds to shame with their light. Those eyes could held me captivate, unable to move. You'd laugh then, that laugh that sounded like the ringing of a silver bell my grandmother used to hang at Christmas; high and clear. But you were laughing with me, not at me. Never at me.

Sometimes I can still see you, lying in bed, smoking. You would sit, your back against the carved headboard and inhale, looking at me as though you wished it was me you were inhaling and not the smoke. Then you'd stub out your cigarette in the ash tray on the bedside table and slide down beneath the sheets. You'd ask me to hold you, and I could not refuse. I'd hold you close to me, and you would hold me like you were holding on to life itself. You always seemed afraid to let go; as though I would leave after you had fallen asleep. But I never could have, even if I was unable to sleep. It was odd, but there were few times I couldn't sleep after meeting you. Many nights before that I would lie awake, unable to slip into dreams, but when you were in bed with me, rest was never far away. You gave me peace. And on those few nights I couldn't sleep, I was content to watch you in slumber, your eyelashes like soft ferns on the white flesh of your high cheekbones. I could listen to your hushed breathing for hours. Hours...

I remember that time as I remember no other. I can see in each detail of all the times we made love, and I can see it as though it were in technicolor. That time it was as though it was in black in white, yet each detail was defined clearly. The way you couldn't catch your breath after we'd finished. And then you started to cough. I can still see with perfect clarity every rise and fall of your thin shoulders as you covered your mouth with your hands. Each cough wracked your thin body, and then you pulled away from me and stumbled from the bed, pulling your silk robe on over your nakedness and rushing to the bathroom. I followed you quickly. You stood over the sink, one hand on it, holding yourself up. In the other hand you held a white linen handkerchief to your mouth, coughing into it. I held you up, feeling you shaking. And when you stopped coughing, you stared into the hankerfchief and went completely still. And I see it, the only thing in the memory that was in color, the crimson blood marring the perfect white.

You were so brave, my dear. You would hold my hand so tightly, even as you coughed up more and more of your lifesblood; and when the spasms stopped you would smile weakly at me. The doctors could do nothing for you. Your weakened immune system could not fight the chilling posion within your goddess body. You became thinner and paler as time wore on; you looked as though you were made of bleached bone. I held you close to me in sleep, refusing to let you go, no matter how much you argued that I needed to stay away. You said you wanted me to enjoy the time I had left, but that was the one thing you never understood about me. I didn't want time; I wanted you. Only you.

It was 3:56 on a Sunday morning when I woke up knowing something was wrong. You were still warm against me, but the breaths that I used to lie awake listening to were gone. You were gone from me, and I held your lifeless form; hot, shameful tears running down my cheeks to fall onto your peaceful face. The only comfort I ever had was knowing that you had not suffered at the final moment, but had passed calmly away in your sleep.

The day we buried you, snow came down in edies, as though the sky was mourning you also. You would have liked your grave plot; it's beneath a ancient oak. I insisted they dig around the roots. The oak must have known that someday you'd rest at its feet; no large roots were in the way. We said our final farewells and while the others piled carnations on top of your casket, I placed a single yellow rose there. I know they were your favorite.

It's been six months now and at night I still awaken thinking you have called my name. I stare into the dark and I can see you there, as you were before you got sick; young and smiling, your green eyes dancing. You smile as though the last months didn't happen, as though we've never been apart. Your laugh tangles itself in the silver strings of my heart and I can hear the songs you'd sing as I drifted off to sleep..."I breathe you in, my little god; uncertainty is banished. Any pain I've ever felt, at seeing you, has vanished..."