"Love of mine,
someday you will die --
but I'll be close behind,
I'll follow you into the dark.."
--Death Cab for Cutie
There's no definite placement to any of my memories that I've had, but they all stem from the same heart. There is a corner in New Jersey, in the US of A, where two young souls used to convene. The words shared there were the only thing that mattered in their eyes: pairs of wish-washed orbs, half-palates soaked in old jeans, horrible, mashed colors. Although she and I were shy of beautiful or extraordinary, our efforts were nonetheless noble, and the bond was tangible, breakable, and real.
In the bitter cold, we were humbled in hoodies and old, ugly jackets. It was probably three in the morning, and most people were coughing up the fumes from their house's heating system in their sleep. But the air was sharp in our lungs, and they supported room for shaking, uncertain words. "I think I just want to have a time in my life where I'm just...happy." I'd share my "amens" with whatever she said.
Sometimes, we'd leave the giant beasts of the human slumbering population behind and stand in dark splotches of nature. We'd hold each other as darkness threatened to suffocate the life from her eyes, and I begged her not to leave me. I told her that "this", who we were, what we were in that second, was all that I had.
She could hear just as well as I could, though; both our ears were attuned to the 2-in-the-morning rush of air. A deafening noise similar to a vacuum sucking the life out of the world. We had no doubt that the air is still getting thinner. Two days ago, my boyfriend said, "The air isn't being sucked out of this world: that's the ocean and the traffic."
Back to that street corner, where we would shake our drinks and sip it's tin-sealed brain cancer. Diet coke, a zero drink in the dullest colors. The caffeine would glimmer in the whites of her eyes, but otherwise, it trickled down our theories like water. Every time the drink ran out, I felt compelled to shake it for change. As if we were homeless. As if money would help us. I always said I was saving up for college. She always said every nickle funded the life we'd have together, the place we'd own when we were happy. A place where life was real.
Two souls don't convene in the darkness. Streetlights litter this town, this city, this state, this country. A sick and golden glow illuminated dust in this air, but would never shine so brightly as to block out stars for us to wish on. Whenever we sat underneath it, it would flicker into darkness. Whenever she and I walked away, it would flicker it's ironic glow back, stronger, and stronger still, until we were gone. We used to call it "our" streetlight. Now it's just a figurehead.
Everything was already reality. Sitting around and making plans: that was our life. And John Lennon will bet every bullet in his brain on that. All we needed was love. But when that isn't there anymore, we would sit down on the sidewalk, pop open a diet coke, and sing songs to each other.
I remember the time she told me we'd find each other there the day the world ended. She said it'd be the last thing left standing. I have no doubt that it will be.
But now, she won't be there.
And that's still real.
