Their eyes were imprisoned, jailed by their own curiosity, and locked onto a life sentence with no possibility of escape; no chance of parole. 3:41pm (PST) filled the corner of their modest flat screen, which they had affixed over the mantle last summer. Their breathing was shallow, and remained secondary to their other bodily functions, all of them. For now, they were very much alive. Besides the reporters over-speaking the video clips on the television, it was quiet. It was deadly quiet. The world was watching in anticipation, holding its breath, waiting, just like Hank and Francis were, while recessed in their Lazy-Boy knock-offs. They were frozen, side by side, separated only by a small table, a lamp, and their overweight calico who fancied licking itself over anything else. King of the jungle, hierarch of the household, the world had stopped for everyone, yet it revolved around this feline’s nightly routine, and for him, his pretentious licking commenced. If only he knew.

Even the birds, and the wind that carries them, remained silent and still, careful not to whistle a tune or to rustle the tree branches outside. The screen radiated a series of light bursts and reoccurring banners which highlighted the wrinkles in their foreheads, and the impending doom held on their faces. Nothing could break them from the inconceivable truth that cemented them in their place except their tender hands that reached out for one another’s embrace. Francis found Hank first. Overwhelmed with shock and fear her hand trembled across his features to eventually find his hand. With her usual grace, and the deepest love for her husband, she squeezed. Hank interlaced his fingers returning the gesture, but their eyes remained glued to the screen. They had hoped it was an April fool’s prank, or perhaps a movie. Unfortunately, it was September, a week before their twentieth anniversary, and it was a Thursday; Not a typical day for a film release. This unequivocally was not a joke.

The first red button had been pushed, and a day that no one thought would happen, had happened. On their way, heading for the entire the west coast of the United States, were one-hundred-thirty-three intercontinental ballistic missiles, each armed with a nuclear warhead that averaged forty times more powerful than Hiroshima. The display on their television was old news, as the government acted in their usual turtle-like pace, intentionally holding back its warning to the public of the Pacific submarine fleet that fired upon us fifteen minutes prior. Hank and Francis had minutes to live if they were lucky, seconds, if they were less, and now living in Seattle didn’t seem like the dream that they had originally sought out. Outrunning a nuclear blast seemed implausible with or without a timely warning, and unfortunately, there was room left for regrets.

With no time to think, no life left to live, and any future memories already destroyed they finally broke their gazes from the wall, with a fateful acceptance. The screen glazed over into an endless blackness, and Hank carefully set down his remote in the depths of his recliner pocket. Their fingers remained balled into an unbreakable fusion of love, as they stood up facing toward each other. Frances locked eyes with him, and Hank did with her. He gripped her by the waist, pulling her closer like he always did when he meant to get her attention. Like the day he said his vows; Like the day that he asked her out for the first time; Like now. He struggled to work up a word from his lips, but eventually found some, while she remained lost in his eyes; her favorite memories flooding her view.

“Frankie--”

“Shh,” she interrupted while nodding her head, and placed a single finger across his lips. “I know.”

No words were needed. Nothing was needed. They both just knew. Frances rested her head against his chest, and he nuzzled his chin into her cushioned crown, their heartbeats syncing for one last time.

As light is faster than sound, the exponential glow of a miniature sunrise flooded its warmth through the windows. The room became white-washed in a heavenly brilliance. It was silent, but astonishing. Their grip tightened on each other, and their eyes wrinkled in anticipation of an inconceivable pain. Death was imminent. Before the sound could arrive, and with the finality of their love securely held in each other’s arms, their bodies, their home, the memories they cherished, and even the obese cat, all withered away into a dust cloud of ashes miles into the atmosphere, only to have ever been joined as one, connected by love, and now remembered by no one.

For they represent the death of evil things

cremation of passion, and misguided attention-

and lies that blow away in the wind.

Blessed be the truth that was told in drunken fights

and the hate behind insecure defenses

disguised as selfish lustful "love"

masked, hidden, and dead.

Forsaken identities, almost certainly married

two sinful selves bound up in something

and altogether destroyed, burned apart

finally made divided, despite our best efforts

made whole again

through destruction

I should have said something,

but it would have hurt you

and that was not my goal.

You should have said something

but you waited too long.

Now it doesn't matter.

We would have said something,

but neither one of us

really wanted to stay.

blessed be the ashes of our love,

gathered into the holiest of urns.

made sacred by the moments lost,

ashes kept caged by frozen momentum,

the inability to let go of the past.

you asked that our love be set free,

ashes tossed towards the clouded sky

until they began to meld together as one,

a solid, uniform grey that paints the world

in shades of our shared discontent.

but i could not honor your request,

kept the ashes lost in the vault of my heart

that has become an eternal urn.

i carry what remains of you within me,

cannot accept that there's nothing left.

sometimes i hear your ashes whisper

from deep within their cage of bones,

they beg me to honor your wishes

and every day they grow heavier, more insistent,

as they plead for sweet release that i can't provide.

i'm weighed down by your remains

the scale is tipping towards me

threatening to spill me into the void.

i cannot set you free, even while you beg,

and even though i know it'll doom me too.

my stomach begins to grow

with parasitic love you planted.

you begged me to flush it away,

with pills or twisted wire hangers

or a sterile hospital room in illinois.

i was convinced that i needed to keep it inside,

to honor the memory you left behind.

but it's beginning to hurt, an ache deep within

that spreads every passing day since you left:

not just in my body but in my mind.

is life a gift that i'm qualified to give

in honor of a man that i no longer have?

i'm living on my mother's dime and working dawn 'til dusk.

is that a world that can support

the weight of your parasitic husk?

you begged me to let it go,

and at the time i couldn't understand why.

so desperately clinging to you,

i did not understand the weight of life.

it's tearing me apart, skin is wearing thin

you warned me that this is what i needed,

that eighteen is far too young.

i thought it was your fear of commitment

that prompted your declaration of dying love.

but you knew our love was already dying.

and now our love lives in a new form,

distorted by loss and time.

it's a life i cannot continue to live,

drained of all my time,

supporting the ashes of you until the end of the line.

i booked the appointment, i made the drive

drove past the protesters calling me a killer.

and using the money i'd been scrambling to save,

i freed the last vestiges of our love from my stomach,

and i am now faced with a new weight of moving on.

a mere clump of cells, absent of its form.

i freed it from a life that i couldn't support.

it never had to face the burden of sentience

and i never had to face the burden

of being trapped with you forever.

and the ashes of our love are tossed from the cliffs,

sent into a cerulean sea of dreams.

i am moving on like you asked me to,

and maybe now i can look for scholarships,

and go to college like i dreamed.

some may deem me a sinner,

some may hail my independence.

but i am not cursed, nor am i innocent.

but blessed be the ashes of our love,

even as they are lost to the mist.

Blessed be the ashes of our love, for they are data. Carbonized ghosts of our lives together, deconstructed in final entropy, but always present somewhere. Perhaps omnipresent within a latticework that only requires collapse to reverse engineer our love.

Perhaps some sentient creature will one day be able to sift these ashes into organs that can sense the collapsed latticework existentially--another sense like sight, hearing, or taste. An alien sense. What will that creature see? Hear? Taste?

Feel?

That creature will know us and know our love. All of it, all of us, all at once. And it will make for a lovely day.

Rise from the ashes

The ashes of our love

Blessed be they…

They together

From us apart

Blessed be they

Once upon a time,

I loved you

Like I love

The air I breathe.

Once upon a time,

You were mine

Through everything

For all eternity.

Once upon a time,

I knew you,

I felt you,

I understood you.

Once upon a time,

We connected

Like two

Colliding stars.

Once upon a time

Has become

Another lifetime ago,

No fairy tale ending.

Blessed be the

Ashes of our love,

Like dead flowers in the

Desolate garden of my heart.

You don't know...

You... just, don't know

You don't understand...I ...I can't...

I cannot breath

Without you here

I have forgotten how to sleep

Without your head

Upon my chest

Leave me in this inferno

In the ashes

Of our love

How dare you

You will bless

This incineration

Inhumane

Inhumation

With your tears

But

You know

Thanks for the memories.

Dark grey ash

coats the land

there is a faint

Thump

Thump

Thump

the wind blows a few ashes away

there is a heart

laying shattered

and stabbed

the knife still in it

bleeding

yet

the heart still gives

blindly and completely

the heart won't stop

it will give and give

until there is nothing left to give

until it is gone

We started out in red hot passion

you loved my sharp wit

I loved your handsome fashion.

Days and nights we merged together

Happiness made us light as feathers.

Oh how I fell hard for your strong

masculinity

As I wrapped you around my fingers with my femininity.

When passions flames become embers

even then the coals dying members

still burn to touch red hot

somehow distracted we both got

Its no one’s fault the fire died out

No body told us Love grows like a sprout, and you have to nurture each other or else it dies out.

So, blessed be the Ashes of our Love,

at least for a while it was a Hell of a barn burner!