afterimages

perhaps, after enough time has passed,
after enough memories have died
in abject martyrdom
and slow starvation,
you will,
at last,
be gone.
gone from inside of me,
gone from the things i do and say
and believe.
and then,
remembering can become
a choice,
instead of this impulsive affliction
that robs me,
still,
of breath and wholeness.

when we look at stars, we don't see them as they are. we only see their light. polaris could die tomorrow, but we would wake up the next day, and the next, and see it just as it was, never realizing that all we were seeing was leftover light from a lifeless source. 431 years later, awareness would hit, and we would finally understand.
i tire of looking at this dead star's light, tire of thinking how similar it looks to other stars in the night sky.
you are not as far as polaris, but still this waiting is so hard. it is harder because i know; i felt death walk past, and yet your light still teases me, taunts me, reminds me of the way you looked, the way things might have been.
but i have little choice. so i wait.
for darkness.
for peace.
for the hole in the sky to reveal itself as a hole and not the light into which i still can't look.

you were so beautiful.
the light is still beautiful.

but it is a hopeless vapor, and i will celebrate the day it is exhausted.