You have to be happy that you had the chance to know her. It’s an odd feeling.  Never again will you be able to say her name to her the way you used to and see her eyes light up.  There’s no hope in that ever happening again.  Ever.  Your memories are cold now, too.  The once warm touch of her palm on your chest or her cheek on your cheek, that’s a long time ago.  That’s something that has been sitting out for quite some time.  Stale.  Cold. There’s a spark in those memories, but barely enough to bring a tiny bit of light to a very dark night.  One of those nights when you go to bed hungry because you’re too tired to fix dinner, and your pillow has been laying on the floor all afternoon so it’s plumped in an uncomfortable shape, and the sheets have turned sideways and the bathroom door creeks and moans in the breeze crafted by the overhead fan.  On those nights, her face is a bit stronger in your mind.  You can count the freckles on her nose again, and see the area where her eyes go from blue to grey.  The bounce in her bangs when she laughed her boisterous, low laugh.  You welcome those nights.  Those ideas that were once a person.  The taste of alcohol on her breath in a deep kiss.  Nothing beat that taste, so you try to trick yourself into tasting it again.  Trying to reheat a cold memory.  Bring life to a…

But it does matter?  They’re not wrong, you shouldn’t spend the rest of your life dwelling. It’s not a great way to become what you want to be.  A dwelling. A Basic and lifeless thing balancing on the cusp of creation and death.  Soon you will be dead and you will have spent too much time thinking about someone other than yourself.  But there’s the thing.  Too much time thinking about others?  Isn’t that what your mom always told you to do?  Think of others?  Spend more time thinking of others than thinking of yourself?  Treat others the way you want to be treated.  That’s what my mom told me.  She told me to think how others want to be treated and treat them that way so they will treat you the same.  Well, I want to be thought of.  All the time.  Loved, wanted, and thought of.  So why can’t I put all my energy into one person, maybe two if I have one in the spotlight at a time.  One off to the side, unfairly…  It’s not unfair.  It’s life. You struggle to be someone’s something. And I made her my something.  I did.  It was not all fantastic, she was rude and immature, sure, but everyone is. And she had all those issues she never really talked about or I just never understood.  I did it anyway.  I made her my something.  And it was all fantastic.  It made me smile every day.  She made me smile every day.  And I thought of her all the time and it was good.  And it was bad.  But I didn’t dwell on it.  Nothing like I do now anyway.  Because I didn’t have to.  I could think of things and I could be free.  Things unrelated to her.  Now it’s all related to her.  I have to struggle to un-relate things to her.  Baths, wine, kisses, sex, smoke, love.  I have a terrible time with it all.  These things that once just made my life a normal life now hurt.  Hurt real bad. 

I’m tired of it and I wish I could love things like I used to understand that I should.  It’s too hard now.   It’s difficult to understand why I should love anything as much as I loved her.  Or still do.  It’s hard to compare what is and what was since all I ever felt and feel is still in me in one form or another.  I have scars don’t I?  On my elbow and knee and wrist and even on my chin I have these scars.  So why can’t a feeling leave a scar, too?  A deeper one even.  Something not as seeable.  These scars on my skin hurt once, and sometimes if you pinch them right they still do.  And an emotional scar can get pinched.  I think so.

You spend so much time thinking about her, she must still exist.  Except she might not.  You haven’t spoken to her in months, years, decades.  You may have dreamed her.  But if you did and she left a scar then you must have once believed in her and she must have believed in you.  There was something fun about that, wasn’t there.  But life isn’t fun anymore.  It’s dismal even.  Full of other people’s laughter, filtered through that ring in your ears that everyone gets when they grow up.  You grew up. That’s what you did wrong.  And you can’t fix it.  Not without help.  Not without her.  Because she’s honestly the only help you really want.  The only person you would trust to grow up with.  If you did it together it wouldn’t be so bad.  Now you have to grow up alone.  Even if you find someone to stand next to and lay next to and dance with, you are still going to grow up alone.  Cold and tired and worn out like a very old sock.  You’re life has become an old sock and the only thing to do with an old sock is throw it away. 

So have another drink.  Take another nap.  Fail a test or two.  Dribble the soccer ball around the field around and around until the grass is as beaten and dead as your concept of hope.  It won’t matter.  The grass will even grow back and the field will have forgotten you were ever there. Just do it all because you have nothing better to do and no one to tell you you shouldn’t.  Mom and dad are away, and your brothers and sister won’t answer your calls.  You’ve fallen into a trap in the mind and you’re the new bait.  But nothing’s biting.  She’s not biting.

You have to be happy that you had the chance to know her. Because she did make your life a little brighter.  For some time.  And even if the rest of your life is very long, can’t that be the best part?  Can’t that be the part that made your life worth talking about?  He died very old and alone and he didn’t write anything impressive or invent a new item, but he loved her.  And she was worth loving.  He did that right.  And we should be happy for him.  And we should try to find someone, once, who we can take in all of who they are and love them more for it.  We should try to love the way he loved.  He was important because for two months of his life he loved the right way. Completely and forever.