forever strange

I pass by his grave by accident Monday and my heart seems to plunge into the cusp of my ovaries, and up to the cave of my chest before I catch my breath. Strange he has been on my mind a lot lately, awakening to nightmares of his death. Sometimes it is as if it just happened. Then there are words, and strange exclamations I’d only briefly crossed in those days following his body’s collapse to a darkened world. Death changes you. It’s subtle at first as if you’ve morphed into a twin, two people in the same body until each side of you is just as a coin. Those who stay unaffected by that of a lover’s death, or a death in general frighten me. I still feel quite fragile in this sense especially since before his death I was considered to be an ice queen (now maybe it is worse). Funny since I’ve never quite felt that way. I thought of that lover today, my mind dragging up the past like a long quilted blanket running through the stitches with my finger tips. I have not loved many men, but those I took in as lovers were special to me. They were delicate. I suppose as humans we cannot help but be attracted to what we see in ourselves in those reflected upon us.

I came across a dress I used to wear in high school, when he was alive and would flag me down in the hallway – calling out my name in that condescending way to drive me crazy. I threw it onto the floor, and gritted my teeth. When does the anger dissipate? I’m afraid his death has ruined me romantically for anyone else. It is anger over the loss, over his obedience to condition. Why didn’t he tell me? He sought me out every day for months, his mind cradling the idea of reuniting in his desperate state. I know partly why he stayed away but it brings me such little comfort, and now the weather is changing – every time this happens I sway to the memories we shared. A cloud of smoke in the air, a triangle of love curved by all of us involved – a rush of my hands on a doorknob to find him in bed with someone he did not love. I was pressed for evidence to make me hate him, so that I could not love him anymore. He really should have hated me for my betrayal was far bigger than his. I was only seventeen but had already lived a life full of complete and utter insanity. I was far older than my age, even if my brain was not fully developed – living with two men who loved me, and each other was a mess.

At least I had his love, maybe I still have it. I do feel sometimes that he is with me, surrounding me. I miss him though, for someone who died at his age will forever be a loss. He should have succeeded in impregnating a woman, having children as wild and tempestuous as him. He was magical. I may attempt to cross his grave again with purple roses but it already feels so cold, and so close to that date I will never forget – and I don’t think I’m strong enough to not fall onto the dirty ground. I wonder how he felt about being buried, if he thought of it at all. Was his death on his mind at the end as I imagine? At fourteen I only knew him as the boy with the house across the street from the school, at fifteen he was mine and for ten years we spun a web.