Mine to Bury

When the man I love held my hand in a gesture that I knew so intrisically and loved so fiercely that its mere memory has brought me to tears... When he sat down opposite of me and told me he had something to say, I knew he wanted to break up with me. In the end, I knew him better than anyone, even for when it came to this.

I felt the walls around my heart closing, ready to defend from the uncoming assault, because I knew what was going to happen as well as I knew my name. I just didnt know why?

When the man I love entered my room with his shoulders bowed and hugged me harder than he ever had, ran his hands through the side of my face with the fervor of a castaway meeting the shore once more... I knew there was a problem bigger than we'd ever face before.

I was ready. For what? I'm not sure, but ready I was. I'd be as fast to apologize as I'd be to forgive, because I loved him. I loved him and I had long ago decided he'd be it for me.

But, when the man I loved told me he loved me with all his heart, that I was the best thing that ever happened to him, that he wanted to keep me in his life but that he just wasn't in love with me... I realized that I had no apologies to give. And, I also had nothing to forgive.

I was sucker-punched by life, by him; the only person I thought would never hurt me like this.

It felt like he died.

He was standing right there, and yet it felt like he was a million miles away. I could feel his fingers interwined with mine, feel the warmth that made me fall in love with him in the first place all that time ago but it felt like my hand wasn't mine. It belonged to someone else, someone who had all the things I had lost.

When we spoke, it was akward and stilted. There was nothing else to be said, but somehow, the space between us felt empty. Somehow, there was something clawing at my throat to GET OUT. Maybe it was tears.

He died.

The man who could make me feel like the only person in the room. The man who taught me how to love, in every sense of the word. The man who I had dreamed of a future with. The man who had been my confidant and my greatest friend. The man who owned my comfortable silences and my tears of joy.

With only one sentence, he was gone.

If you had asked me to describe him before, I wouldn't have called him an angel, not by a long shot. He had a mean streak a mile wide, a humour dark enough to merit a place in hell and sarcasm came out of his mouth at least thrice as much as "I love you" did. But he had been mine and I love him.

When someone dies, people will say that they become angels that watch over you... I'm not sure if I belive that.

I do know angel is someone who leaves you behind. Someone you can't see anymore. Someone you can't talk to, not in the way you did before. Someone's whose going to have to miss all the things you wanted to share with them of your life. Someone who moves on to better things. Someone's whose purpose at your side has ended.

The man I love has become an angel; I just need to let my memories of us die along with him, so that they may all be buried so that I may keep the essence of what he once was and hopefully forget the ending, what he became:

A stranger in his death.