Terror

My love, my love, my love,

Not just disintegrative grief, without you. Paralyzing, bone-freezing terror as well.

You knew me when we were children. You knew the scared, sad little boy that I was, the one who would finally find the courage to ask you to marry him almost 50 years later. You loved me then the way children love each other.

We listened to “Free To Be You And Me” together a few months ago and you cried, remembering how you listened to it when you loved me as a child, all the way back. And now as I reach for you, for any fragment I can find, grasping at phantoms, I don’t remember which parts you cried at and I can’t ask you.

You knew I loved Sesame Street, and was scared and sad and shy. And even back then you loved me, and I loved you, your radiant joy even with pain beneath it. I loved you like a flower loves the rain.

And now you’re gone. You were my link to my own childhood because you were there and you loved me. I was, because you loved me. And now you’re gone and that link is broken and I’m afraid I’ll forget who I am because you’re not here anymore to remind me. I don’t make any fucking sense without you.

Why do I have to endure without you? How can I? You can’t cut something in half and expect it to just keep working.

Living without you is living in fear, all the time.

I wish I could join you, wherever you are. We belong together. I can’t bear living without you.