fracture theory.

It's bizarre that for as long as I loved you, I have virtually no photographs of you.
Almost as if you were merely a figment of my imagination.

An incredibly amazing dream, so powerful my heart could burst. A dark, stormy nightmare; one that I just couldn't seem to wake up from.

You were no ghost.
Your eyes were like tentacles, reaching into me and spreading me open. Your presence in my life was a cataclysm of proportions you can't imagine.
Wiping ash on my face after the fire subsided. That's no way to say goodbye.
That's not the kind of life I dreamed of for us.

I lied, there is one picture that I clearly remember. You are pretending to sleep on a large rock.
You always hid your face.
There were more. My memory misled me. But they are lost somewhere. In a box? In a fire? In the wind?

Maybe you were a ghost. I could never quite catch you.
I tried so goddamn hard.
Fading in and out. I remember all of the static that surrounded us.

I spoke in short sentences around you. I didn't want to give too much away.
But you took everything, anyway.
Electricity is a fickle child. Jolted awake but burned. An open-heart orgasm is no match for your pavlovian tricks.

The only thing I have to remember you by, still, is the picture I drew of you.
It's fuzzy and grey. You aren't looking at me. You're looking somewhere off in the distance.
It's probably better off like that because it makes you seem further away.
I've got you just where I want you. Just where I need you to be.
Somewhere in the distance, crackling branches in the night, asleep on a bed of bones.
We keep our distance on purpose. We hide our scissors, we fold pages in the right places.

Maybe you are a ghost. I've got no more proof of you. Just my drawing.
Just my fear, and the way I stutter when I talk about you.
And the ashes on my cheek that never seem to wipe clean.

I guess this is the way I say goodbye.

(written in November 2009)