words by Jasmine Palomino, art by Eileen Nguyen
“To love and to cherish, till death do us part.”
Do you remember saying those words? Did you know that they’re a lie?
We’ve been parted, but I don’t love you any less than I did the day we made that promise.
You picked a very poetic time to die, which I probably shouldn’t be surprised by. Even in death, you’re an artist at heart. How was it you used to describe autumn?
Red and gold peppered throughout the trees.
Gold-dappled shadows, sun shining through leaves like stained glass.
Fiery leaves that shrivel and fall so that flowers can take their place.
Your mind and your words were always so beautiful. Mine are much uglier.
I step on the dead leaves and hear them crackle like bones being snapped. I see the wet dirt, and I imagine your flesh rotting to rejoin it, insects getting the most glorious feast of their puny lives while I wonder why yours couldn’t have been longer. The only thing I can’t bear to think of is your face, which, to me, must always be full of curiosity and kindness, or there’s something wrong with the world.
There is something so, so wrong with the world.
You had seen this wrongness. You were human, too. Yet you’d tell me that there was a lot of right in this world, if we could only look for and encourage it. You also told me that you’d always be there for me, and while you were wrong about a lot of things (it’s pronounced CARE-a-mel, and now you can’t argue with me), you might’ve been right about this one. Because even now, I still find myself always coming back to you.
When I’m alone in bed, you wrap your arms around me through the blanket you took a whole summer to crochet, each soft square a different color of yarn.
When I’m walking home at dark, I hold the ridiculous disco lamp you bought at that one yard sale, and it’s like your hand is in mine as the glowing neon spots light up the street.
When the hole in my soul hurts too much and I need yours to fill it, I read your words and it’s like the first time you finally forked over a work-in-progress, watching nervously as I glimpsed who you were underneath and decided that you were the only one for me.
Clouds blush and the world breathes softly, you wrote on a notepad during one of our walks, giving love and life to the sky I’d never bothered to look at twice. I look at it all the time now, wondering how I could’ve missed the beauty right above me.
Adorably round blueberries, you scribbled on a napkin at dinner, studying the fruit I’d hurriedly washed and dumped in a bowl. I’ve been buying the roundest blueberries I can find, noticing their mini starbursts more and more.
Love is love. No more, and no less. I still have the anniversary card with that inside. Pretty clever way of saying you are the gift when you forgot to get one.
And it’s true. You are my gift, and you always will be. Even though you can’t be here, I still feel you. Just like the annoying sand from the beach, you’ve managed to be everywhere. And after I’m all done leaving my mark on the world, maybe I can finally hear the next beautiful words you have to say. The ones after I love you and I missed you so much, obviously.
