April 30th, 2025, Approx. 2 pm EST.

I wrote the

thickest,

slowest,

shiniest,

most fragrant,

and amber

poetry about you.

How your icy eyes splashed on me, coaxing me into white waters.

How your pink lips healed just to crack once more under the chill of your own tongue.

How your soft hands carved, circled, and abandoned those that stared at you for too long.

How could they help themselves? Look at you.

You lit my muscles with fire, you boiled my blood black, you stole the breath from my lungs.

And as I burned from the inside, becoming the piled ash of a consumed man,

I didn’t look away.

I haven’t looked away.

May 1st, 2025, Approx. 11 pm EST.

You’re fading from me.

I can’t remember all that you’ve said.

the sound of your feet on the hardwood,

or the echo of your soft door knocks.

I’ve lost the space between your laughter,

& the sharp gasps under your tears.

I can’t tell if I miss what I’m missing. I can’t tell what resides in what’s forgotten.

Is what I remember worth remembering?

Because what I know is what I knew of you. It’s not who you are. You’ve become since then.

So do I hold onto this image of you?

This brilliant and painfully withering portrait of who only exists in our last moments together?

To tighten my grasp around a memory of you?

Preserving your mirage until it burns into my palms,

Obstructing my lifelines,

Destroying my prints,

Rendering my senses numb.

Though sacrificial,

The ultimate testament of devotion

is not the acceptance of suffering,

Nor the gratitude for affliction.

It is my release of you.