The cold ocean took you on a day I’ve counted down to the second.
I know the number. I carved it into my hair the moment the ice closed over your head.
And still, still, it feels like centuries. Like I’ve been standing on this shore since the world was young, waiting for a ghost that will never walk back out of the foam.
I keep trying to build you in my mind, piece by piece, but the pieces are crumbling.
Was your nose sharp or soft?
I remember the way it used to wrinkle when you were annoyed - that small, furious crease, but I can’t remember the shape of it anymore.
Your lips. They looked chapped, almost cruel, but they were so gentle when you forgot to be furious. Weren’t they?
I think they were.
I think I’m lying to myself just to feel something that is you.
And your brows, those dark, sharp slashes that made you look like you were always plotting new murder plan.
I can see them clearly, but when I try to place them on your face, your face dissolves.
Like smoke.
Like sea spray.
It’s stupid, isn’t it?
I know each part of you like a prayer.
But when I try to say the whole prayer, the words come out wrong.
The face I loved is becoming a shattered ice.
So I stare into fire now.
Flames, wild and hungry, they have your eyes.
That burning, unhinged light you used to pin me with.
I look until my vision blurs, until I can almost pretend the heat is you glaring back.
I drank whiskey tonight.
I hate it. Always have
But it smells like your collar. Like your breath when you leaned too close.
I held the glass like it was your jaw.
And gunpowder.
I keep a little pouch of it on my desk.
I don’t even like guns.
But it smells like your fingers, that blackened residue you never quite washed off, no matter how many times I held your hand.
I trace the grains like they’re your knuckles.Every time a bomb goes off in the distance, I think:
You could have made it louder.
More vicious. More beautiful.
You were always better at destruction than anyone.
But even that, even the sound of you is starting to fade into other noises.
Into thunder. Into gunfire. Into the ringing in my ears when I miss you too hard.
I’ve tried everything.
I’ve touched silk, wool, smoke, water.
Nothing feels like your hair.
I don’t remember if it was coarse or fine.
I don’t remember if it curled at the ends.
Xanxus.
Tell me again.
How did your eyes look?
Were they amber? Were they red?
Were they soft, just once, just for me?
Or am I making that up too?
Because if I forget your eyes, then I forget that you ever saw me at all.
