by Sabrina M.
Tran·scend: Be or go beyond the range or limits of (something abstract, typically a conceptual field or division).
By your side of the bed, a blue ballpoint pen is slipped into your book about string theory-
I never understood string theory- even though you claimed that you had unlocked the holy secret to it all-
Something about existing all at once- in different dimensions-
I never understood your interest- your obsession- with String Theory but flipping through that book for the last time, your spicy cinnamon cologne wafting from the pages, I still don't think I get it.
I never understood how you could lose your grip on reality in the name of transcending- in the name of finding that dimension in which you and I were forever.
I never understood how you could spend the last of your days with me- your cold hands trying to grip mine, your eyes looking into mine yet transfixed into a point in time I still can't seem to find.
“White lips, pale face”-
I miss how you used to hum the songs in your own, off-tune little beat as we danced around in the refrigerator light.
I miss-
-
How is it that even after you had to stop playing the guitar because your fingers couldn't stop shaking, you were still able to feverishly tell me how string theory worked- this idea of transcending one dimension to live in another.
If you can spend hours lecturing on the theory of existence as a state of being, please, please tell me this.
Tell me how you expect me to reach-to transcend- to where you are when all I can comprehend from your physics books are the imprints on the pages from where your fingers brushed against the words.
Tell me. Tell me how I can look at a person-right in the eye- and tell them I love them even when I am transfixed into the future (long gone from the present).
Maybe you saw me in the future- somewhere in that distant parallel universe you put your faith in after realizing how delicately disposable this world was- how little time you had to live in this universe.
Maybe you really did see us somewhere in the over there- in a little house near the woods with your feet propped onto the kitchen table, your arms wrapped around me tightly-
When you looked me in the eye, your eyes dilated and unfocused, maybe you really did mean the words you said to me-
But maybe you just said it to the me on the other side.
Regardless though- despite it all- I was still here while you were there.
Predictably, you turned to your books in an attempt to find a way to transcend the inevitable- a infinitesimal small hope in the future nestled and nurtured between your late nights fervors and terrors of d**h.
I envied you though. Sometimes I'd see that glazed look in your eyes- the days you refused to take your medicine, the days you threw up so much I felt like I would too- I saw it all in your eyes and I wish I saw it too.
I wish I saw that alternate universe- promised by String Theory- that you chose to dwell in; even when you were still alive.
But I also wish that you stayed with me.
Even on the following days leading up to the moment, you'd just lie in the hospital bed getting thinner and thinner, colder and colder while I just wished that you would blink and look at me.
Not just look at me in that glazed, unobtainable joy in thinking that you would pa** this life onto the next where I would be waiting-
But look at me in a way that made me feel like you and I really were on the same page of reality- in the same universe at the same time.
I wanted you to look at me in a way that reminded me of the boy I fell in love with and desperately wanted to anchor here.
But that day never came until today.
Today is the worst because I wake up with your arms around me, shaking and trying to hold me tight grip.
This is the worst because it's not the kind of wrong it's been for the past six months- but the kind that I know we won't be able to pa** over because you haven't tried to hold me like this for so long.
Fingers tangled in my hair, breath mixing with breath, cradled in your bony arms-
You look at me.
For the first time in a long time, you stare at me and I feel like I'm not being looked through- like you've finally realized that I am your love- the one that is here right now, not the one lingering in some distant alternate universe that you kept the thought of us being forever alive in.
I lean in to kiss your lips, realizing that this would be the last time I would smell your spicy cologne on your body. It feels like hell.
You close your eyes, lips trembling.
“I love you,” you tell me.
Your eyes are closed and I can't tell if you're telling me that you love me or the me you hope to find on the other side.
Regardless though, I whisper the words back because even if you're the boy who lived exhaustively with your head in the clouds- firm on the belief of transcending- I fell in love with that boy.
There's a stretch of silence before you begin to relax a little- your eyes still closed- a smile on your face.
“'I'm opening the door now,” he murmurs.
“You do that,” I choke out, trembling.
You opened the door.
You went away from me for forever on that cold Tuesday at 9:37 in morning, at the town's hospital.
You had a smile on your face.
I wish I knew if you were smiling because you saw me on the other side, grinning brightly and waiting for you.
Regardless though, I am still here and you are still there.
After the funeral, I went home, grabbing your bottle of cologne to spray all over the room and my pillows.
I whispered goodnight to myself, instead of you saying it like you always did, burying my face into your pillows and trying to sleep.
Fingers tangled in my hair, your breath mixing with mine, cradled in your arms-
Those are things that oscillate between the thin lines of steadiness and dissipation in my mind.
What I do find though- months later- are the bits and pieces of you scattered around my room- all of the things haphazardly thrown in as if they were unfinished business- makeshift bookmarks to save your place to return to later.
By the corner lamp stand, a now dried up rosemary leaf is stuck between the pages of Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 , marking the section:
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
d**h's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the d**h-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
~*~
I still hate your spicy perfume. I haven't grown to like it-even after all this time.
I am still here.
But I will never stop loving you. I hope that somewhere- out in the infinite universe- there is a you and me and they're happy together.
Even if I am here yet over there with you, I hope that you were right about all those theories you read in an attempt to transcend the inevitable and keep us together forever. I hope you found our little forever buried within the despairing thought of dying so young because
I miss you.
I miss you a lot.