i couldn't believe it. it had been almost 3 years since i last laid eyes on her and yet there she stood, mere feet away. the morning sun was obscured by dark, nefarious clouds but there was no mistaking - it was her.

elation poured through my veins as thick and viscous as honey, flammable as it set my brain on fire. my thoughts tore through my head, a runaway train with no end in sight. pure unadulterated joy, the likes of which i hadn't felt in so long, cut through my senses disjointedly, a welcome stranger in my bed. my steady, steady pulse, so used to the 46bpm track it usually played, exploded in a fury, threatening to asphyxiate me as eagerly as the bile that was snaking its way up my throat.

i stood, frozen in time, in that cold parking lot as the wind and my hair stabbed repeatedly at my face. She had started to cross the street with an unmistakeable smile on her face. go to her, my heart cried....catch her before it's too late. She obviously didn't see me or she wouldn't be taking her selected path.

i started after her, my body stubbornly rigid from the sight. same hair, same glasses, same face and clothes - it HAD to be her. as soon as my feet decided to co-operate, as soon as my boots stomped the pavement and the adrenaline rush flooded my brain, i stopped. somewhere deep inside, the tide started to change. what once was waves of elation were washed clean by the rivers of despair. i stood silently as my hands trembled by my side, as the chaos in my head quietened to just one voice:

the voice of reason.

tears slowly formed then poured down my face and shirt. i'd been had; tricked and deceived by the promises whispered by the often devious delusions of hope. in what could only be described as the cruelest joke the world had ever played on me, i had allowed myself to believe with all sincerity that it was her. my tears continued to flood my face as my body started to shake. muscles twisted and turned underneath my skin, a den of snakes beneath the flesh. pain shot through my heart as sadness wrapped her hands around it, squeezing until it felt as a hard boiled egg gripped within tense fingers, squeezed until it slithers out and falls to the floor.

she's not coming back to me, now or anytime in the future. i'll never see her smile again nor will i hear her gentle laugh play upon my ears. never again will i feel the warmth of her touch nor will i feel the quiet, disjointed peace and chaos that simultaneously radiated from her when i was near. i know with a surety that only comes from hard won experience that she is gone forever.

i helped to bury her 3 years ago as of 07/05 of this year. as i finally made my own way across the busy street, my eyes blurred and burned from the salt in my tears as i breathed fire into my lungs. that dead, empty weight -the same i carried with me during the 3 days of her services - had found its way back. my only respite came from silently crying myself to sleep that night, my head and heart swimming with memories of her in better times and better places, before her body turned on her and destroyed the vessel that housed her spirit and helped bring me life.......god, how i miss her still.