the chords of my last breath.

You're holding me close to your chest, close to your heart. I can hear the rhythm of your body, it's a metronome in my ears. Your arms are cradling me and I can see your face looking down to me. Brows scrunched together, eyes clouded, mouth slightly parted. Your face is sticky with tears and the sun behind you illuminates the drops clinging beautifully to your eyelashes. Your hair is disheveled, clothes dusty and your breath coming out in soft sobs.

I want to reach my hand up to you, dry your eyes, push your hair behind your ear. But my fingers, my hands, they are cold as clay and I can barely keep the breath in my lungs. I want to say something, I want to open my mouth, let my voice free. My body does not cooperate. It feels as if my throat is gone.

I see your hand move to my face. It's red with blood. My blood. You rest it on my cheek, stroking it ever so gently. It feels wet, almost sticky. You look so sad, staring at me as I lay motionless in your arms. Your lips are moving, words escaping them. I hear nothing but the silence of my own thoughts spilling out of my head to disappear.

I think about how you're safe now. And how the ending of my life is, even if just this once, able to prevent anything from happening to you. Dying to protect someone I love, someone who is my everything, someone who I need. Dying to protect you.

I love you, and I think that this isn't such a bad way to die. My only regret being that you have to be here, watching, experiencing me slowly lose my life. And that I have to leave you behind. I'm so sorry.

We gaze into each other's eyes, into each other's souls, and with the last of my strength, I manage to lift my mouth into a small smile.

My eyelids feel so heavy, and against my will, they start to slide shut. There is only darkness when my eyes finally close, but I hang onto the memory of you as I fade away.

some days are just for us.

It was a damp kind of day. The weather outside cold, dark, mostly dreary. The kind of day where you just don't feel like doing anything.

We decided it was the perfect opportunity to skip class. We sat at the stairwell. On top of the heater that was in the middle where the doors to the outside were. Where the second set of stairs started and the first ended. It sat against the wall, about a meter tall and wide. The heater was hot on our legs and we rested our hands on the edge, shifting every so often so we wouldn't get burned. Our shoulders, arms, thighs pressed against one another, we sat close so we didn't fall off. We leaned into each other and it was comfortable.

He was holding a book, reading off a paragraph word by word out loud. His voice smooth, only stuttering or mispronouncing a few times. He read with a pleasant fluidity and it echoed off the brick walls that surrounded us.

I was staring at the book, following his voice on the page but also trying to fight off sleep. I was tired and he was so warm and I wanted to close my eyes right there, but I continued to listen.

Times like these, times spent with just the two of us seemed to become more and more rare as he got busier. He worked hard at everything he did, while I just moved through the days. It was difficult to find spare moments in which we could be together, so we took every chance we could. It seemed he was leaving me behind, so I clung to him, savouring and enjoying every instant.

I sighed deeply and rested my head on his shoulder so I could still see the book but I was closer to him, even if just by a little. It felt good and right to have his body heat mingle with mine. He stopped reading to let out a long yawn. His body stiffened then relaxed slightly as he exhaled loudly.

'I'm tired,' he said, while rubbing his eye, one hand still holding the book.

'Me too,' I replied, watching the novel slip from his grasp and fall to the tiled floor, splayed in the middle and pages bent.

'Damn.'

We looked at each other. I observed the way his eyes fluttered as he blinked. Perfectly almond shaped eyes, almost almond in color as well, framed by long but sparse lashes. His hair was sweeped to the side but still managed to obscure most of his pretty left eye.

He lifted a hand up and gently pushed my hair away from my cheek to my ear. His fingers were cold on my skin.

Slowly, so slowly, his face came nearer to mine. His hand was on me, fingertips ghosting my cheek. His lips pressed against mine and I leaned in.

Our kiss was short, and it left a sort of fleeting feeling in my stomach. Something akin to nervousness or maybe happiness. He pulled away, hand not moving from my cheek. I stared at him, then smiled.

'Does this mean we're gay?'

He laughed and it sounded so good running through my ears.

'Not entirely?' We laughed together and it made me happier than it should have.

He slid off the heater and grabbed my hand to pull me down as well. We walked up the second flight of stairs holding hands, fingers intertwined, leaving the fallen book to be forgotten.

you.

I think about you.
I think about you a lot.
So much so, I think my head might overflow.
Memories spilling from my ears, nose, mouth, eyes. Everywhere. Seeping from my skin.
As they did when you died.
I remember that day. Every action, every word, in verbatim. The months leading up to it as well.
In fact I remember all the time we spent together, all those years.

But in a way, I remember none of it. I remember in that blurry, fading way that memories come in. Moments are hazy, and I realize with a slow panic, that your face is also gradually disappearing from my mind.
Bit by bit, as the years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds go by, a piece of you dissolves.
I try to keep you alive in my head. I pick one memory of a time spent with you, and try to recall every detail of it.

My favourite memory of you. The one I want to replay in my head over and over and over so I never forget. The one I think about most often.

That night we walked down Main Street, our shoulders touching, pushing against each other. A gentle rain made the streets and buildings shine with the soft golden light of the street lamps. We strolled down the sidewalk, admiring the houses and trees that looked so different in the day. Their true, obscure beauty only showing itself in the black of night. Your words froze in the air as you spoke of your day. I watched you intently, the way your mouth moved, the way your eyes seemed to reflect any light that hit them, the way your face was illuminated so that I could see every peculiarity. You looked at me, I could see myself in your eyes. You asked if I was listening, a smile dancing on your lips.

But where were we headed?
Why were we there?
These things I cannot remember.

That happens a lot.
The little things that I forget, they haunt me. Why can't I recall them? Are they unimportant? Are they meant to be forgotten?
These things that seem so insignificant at the time, I never would have imagined that I would want to hold on to them so desperately. That I would want to seek comfort in them.
Alas, they are gone from my mind.
---

When you told me you were going to die, I didn't believe you. I didn't want to believe you. The thought of losing you, you who is most precious to me, you who is my only escape from this world, was unfathomable to me. However, as time passed all too quickly I could see your body, your reality deteriorate.
I spent everyday with you. Nothing else mattered to me then. I took you places and talked to you. A change of places of sorts, as you were usually the one to speak while I listened attentively, drinking in your words. And it was you who took me out, to show me this world and let me witness all the tiny miracles happening around me.

Three or so months from the day you told me, and exactly one week from the day you died, we went to the beach together.
We walked from your apartment, hand in hand, to make sure you didn't stumble or bump into something. You were so weak then, slender and fragile, gripping on to my hand. Your eyes weren't all there. Unfocused and cloudy. You weren't all there, and I can only hope that, at that time, your mind was in a better place. So it wouldn't have to observe the state you body was in. It hurt my heart to see you in such a way. A dull, nagging pain that made me want to fall to my knees and grasp my chest.

We sat on the fine white sand, a few feet from the water. The ocean played a soothing melody of back and forth and back and forth waves. The sea foam almost reached our feet, but never quite got there. The quiet wind brushed your hair into your eyes.
You smiled. A small, dainty smile. A smile nonetheless.
I wanted to cry.

I took out a bottle from my cardigan's pocket. It was a bottle of bubbles. The brand we always got when we were younger. It was a powder blue bottle, no longer than my index finger. It was the one you had gotten me for my birthday last year. You told me you bought them because I had recently said I loved bubbles. I promised never to use it unless it was a special occasion and you said that was a waste.

I unscrewed the cap. For some reason, that moment, right then, seemed like the perfect chance to use them. I dipped the wand in the soapy water, held it up and placed my lips to it. I blew carefully, and watched as a stream of perfect bubbles came flowing out. The wind carried them up, up, up, till they seemed to spin in front of the sun. They shone like something precious, colours moving around them, they sparkled in our eyes.
Amazing.
I kept blowing more. The way something so simple created such a magnificent display was spellbinding to me.
Something in you seemed to come back. A light in your eyes. You calmly grasped my hand that was holding on to the bubble wand. Your hand enclosed mine. You brought the wand up to your face and blew. Another parade of bubbles came floating out, but these ones were different. They were more brilliant than any of the ones I had made. It was like a sliver of you was in every one of those bubbles. They were more graceful and more dazzling than anything I had ever seen.

We blew bubbles until the bottle ran empty. I dug a hole in the sand beside me and placed both the wand and bottle inside. I stood up. took hold of your hand and pulled you up next to me. We walked back home as the sun was threatening to set.
---

The day you died, it was quiet. The sun was bright, the clouds were nowhere to be seen. It wasn't just quiet, it was silent. As if the whole world, as if time itself was peacefully mourning.
I was beside you, like I've always been.
I touched your hand, I looked at your face.
You didn't move.
You were resting.


And I hope that you are having a good dream.

goodbye, lover.

The time has come for me to leave.

To quietly walk away from your side, disappear without a word.

You're content. You laugh like you mean it and your head spins with the miracles that run through it.

I have come to accept my circumstances, my destiny, if you will.

My fate to be in a disjointed, seperate place from you. Empty and detached I will become, never again to see you in the same light. We now live in two contrasting worlds.

Yours filled with the feeling of newly found love and the brighter side of everything. It's glowing and colorful and it pulls at the side of me that wants to be okay.

My world is a far cry from the warmth of yours. It is sunless and obscure and bitter. The coldness of my regret numbing me so that I am unable to be reached by the undesired kindness that flows from you.

I escape it.

I am alone, but not lonely. I live within myself, surrounded by the recollections of our time. They swirl inside me, behind my eyes, in my ears, under my skin.

I cage them, they remain fluttering fragments of memories.

And I can live with just that. The person I created in my mind, birthed from the you of the past.

I will watch you grow, watch you feel, watch you experience. I will stand away from you, veiled and sequestered, and I will watch you be happy.

hello, hello.

he walks away from his mind, leaving it to wither away and vanish.

his gaze is long and lonely.

staring emptily at things he doesn't want to see.

his voice is hollow.

it sounds like the final ring of a church bell.

words falling from his lips like dead blossoms, dropping to the ground for me to pick up.

he sways when he walks, a fragile gait.

i want to take his hand, his sad, unfeeling hand.

i want to grasp it tightly, look into his distant eyes.

i want to see everything he has left behind.

experience it.

i want to replace it.

replace it with myself, my being.

So when he looks at me, his eyes will be a little softer,

his cheeks a little warmer and his smile a little brighter.

A Drowning Man.

He lays in the water, face looking upwards, arms stretched out.

He moves his fingers, he feels the water. He feels it inside, outside, all over. The way it swishes through his hands as he pushes his arms to and fro in the motion of a flying bird. It strokes his skin, embraces his body. His hair twisting in the current like golden seaweed.

He can hear it in his ears, singing and crying and laughing. It's calming in a strange sort of way.

He thinks about why he's in his current situation, floating aimlessly in the middle of the ocean. And he thinks it's quite stupid, and he's just feeling sorry for himself, but he doesn't mind just staying there.

Earlier, he was walking down the street, it was a fine night, warm, but not hot, with a cooling breeze that ruffled the locks of his hair. It was already dark, bright lights from shops and streetlights made the buildings sparkle and shine. The sidewalks flooded with people, talking, hugging, smiling. He couldn't help but wish he was with someone at that moment. Someone he could just walk next to, exchange glances with, make idle conversation with.

He stood at a street corner with the rest of the crowd waiting to cross, leaning on the post that held up the traffic lights. He looked across, to the people on the other side of the street, surveyed their faces, then to the bright red hand that flashed 'don't walk'.

He glimpsed to his left. There a was shorter boy, dark haired and baby faced, idly standing next to him, their hands briefly brushing against each other. He stared at the boy, willing for him to turn his head ever so slightly and look at him. Talk or grin or giggle or something.

The light turned green and the boy stepped to the other side.

He remained leaning, like he was waiting. Waiting for someone who would never arrive. He wanted to say something, anything, to someone, anyone. Almost words ghosted the tip of his tongue and came out as a long sigh. He spun around abruptly and headed in the direction of the beach.

He slipped off his shoes when he reached the sand and strolled to where the ocean met the land. He placed his shoes just out of the way of the water. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and decided, in his delusion of wanting to be needed, that if someone were to text him, call him, anything, in the next ten minutes, he would not do what he was about to do. He sat next to his shoes and observed the clouds crawling slowly across the darkened sky. He squished his feet into the sand and inspected dried shells scattered around him.

The ten minutes were gone in no time and he stood up, dropping his phone and bag with his shoes. He walked into the water till he was wet to his thighs. It was cold and sloshed around him. He went further and further until finally, he was up to his neck in water. He slowly moved onto his back and floated. He floated and floated for a time and before he realized he was quite a distance from the shore. He had drifted almost to the line of buoys that marked where the swimming section ended and the deeper water where the boats cruised by began.

Which is where he was at the moment. As he gazes up he can see the stars dimly peek from behind the clouds. There is no moon.

With a whoosh of his arms he submerges his whole body. Underwater is pitch black and he can't even distinguish his own self from the cold space that stirs around him in every direction.

He decides he doesn't want to go back to the surface, to the reality of his life. He takes a deep breath and wetness fills his nose. His lungs, now filled with sea water, burn. A dull, throbbing burn, but he thinks it feels kind of nice. It's like that for a few more moments before his head feels heavy and his eyes close and he really feels the water run through him.

He doesn't see the surface again, just like he wanted.