Icy winter air makes its way into my lungs like a menthol cigarette, my chest wrenches and ties my ribs into a knot. Walking in forty below, I feel the pang of death only to find myself in your unmade bed when I come home. A book might calm my mind, so I take one from your shelf but the dust on the cover quickly turns to gun powder. Maybe a movie instead, so I play the one you left in your DVD player. It stutters before a blurry image of you shows on the screen. I see you now, your tea leaf hair falls in your face and your coffee coloured eyes stare back at me. You tell me no one is ever too far gone, that I am not too far gone. But aren’t you? I see you now, you open your mouth and swallow a bullet, your blood spills from your lips, it drips down the side of your desk and rapidly shifts to a bright red snake. It lunges out at me, the tv screen shatters and I’m in my empty living room with a photo album on the floor in front of me. I crack the spine and there are your baby photos beautiful and still, as I turn the pages they evolve into forensic photography, glued to the pages with brain matter. I turn around to see a photographer, the flash from his camera blinds me. I’m myself leaning over the bathroom vanity now, envisioning a memory of my mother, bent at the waist, coating her eyelashes with mascara. I run the tap only to have the water flood the room. Terrified, I swim, I swim to the top but your hand grabs my ankle and drags me down the drain. I fall through and land on wet cement. You’re there in front of me yet again, struck by your presence, I’ve waited too long to move. The cement has dried, and again I have to watch you pick up that same black gun. I scream, the cement crumbles but you’re already gone. I start to run and I run through door after door until I stumble into a thick forest and still I run. Calling your name, I’m sprinting until I fall eight feet into the earth, my body slams into your open casket. I reach up to touch your face, my fingertips touch your pale lips and your body starts to burn. I feel that same wintery pang in my chest despite the heat of the fire, your fire. In an attempt to hold you close to me, all I am able to grasp are dark grey ashes, my hands burn and blister but I hold you close to me anyway. I can’t help but close my eyes. Slowly the heat starts to fade. I open my eyes again. I’m lying in your unmade bed, and I remember that you’ve been gone since September.
