Dear You,

You stand in the shadow of a photograph, with your face in black and white and your skin glowing,  an opal shell opalescence. You, the blurring mirage of rain shadow.  You, who I see behind my eyes before I go to sleep and who is in the room before I awaken, standing inside the gilt edge lily mirror.  And you,  who is at times closer than my skin and further away than the nearest smattering of a certain nebulous Universe: flaring with your kaleidoscope heart and your colours: the purple of luminescent promise.   Making the stars tremble in gardens of firefly light.  

You, whose voice I can hear in my thoughts as soft as the promise of some sweet beguiling tomorrow: of cinnamon and the best part of emerald green, smiling like blousy old roses. You, who sends me smatterings of meaning, here and there: a bit like the smell of pages of old books, from some still and unexpected Autumn morning: A word on the T-shirt of a chef, an obscure word naming the town you were from, or a snippet of wailing banshee music that you sang to me, all of your laughter and fury combining.

You, who chose to end your life on a blistering heat haze day, when your days and all they meant, were too heavy to keep on trying to lift. The weight of your life, making you burrow underneath, until you were half standing, half crippled like a wizened old man, lifting one rock after another. You, who did not choose but did and went away, with your pride and your dignity and your courage, wrapped up in a glistening robe of silver blue meaning. 

Sometimes, I can almost imagine that you are in another room, or in another part of the world, and I, the eternal stay behind, am waiting for you to come back into the orbit of star shine and the sound of your chuckle which would make my life feel warm and full. That sense, that we knew each other on a level that was mysterious: ornate keys meeting the right silver locks, somewhere we found silence and blue sepia knowing.

And you, whose onyx ring I still feel cold against my palm, as we go to sleep in the thrall of friendship and promise and best dreams.  We could, we were young then and the promise of youth, encouraged us to dream big. Life had not taken the brutality of day and day and time and life and lightning strikes of disappointment and a million tiny betrayals: dry ice and razorblades.  Just like seeing someone shrugging, life had not done its best damage, just yet.

And you, who did not say Goodbye. And so I must say Goodbye instead, by finding a way to endure the days without you and finding the cartography of who you were, in a million and two places.  In certain chords and in a million ways of light and in seconds of silence when I can feel you, like a tender hand on the sorest places of my heart.  

Sleep softly, my darling.