Says the Old Man Gasping on the Floor…

Says the old man gasping on the floor, his last breath announcing its arrival.

I remember before I loved you. I remember the empty moments, the hours spent imagining who you were. I remember the healing in my life, the challenges that came in preparation for the moment I first laid eyes on you.

I remember meeting you. I remember the waves of indescribability that invaded every part of me. I remember trying to gather my senses, but being so lost in that ocean of love that I had forgotten how to swim. 

I remember holding you, my love. I remember the hope we shared in the warm breezes that had once touched the mountaintops. I remember the possibilities we explored, the stories of truth we shared, ending in those embraces that only lovers know.

I remember the strength I felt in your blissful joy. I remember those moments when nothing else seemed to matter. I remember life’s struggles becoming easier, life’s stories becoming happier, and life’s potential seemingly endless in the paths our union had lit before us.

And I remember, says the old man gasping on the floor, when time and space became too much to bear, when the grains of sand between us became more important than the beach we shared. I remember when we ended before we began, and when the rays of hope that once lit our ways became fires that destroyed the very forest we had searched for.

As I look at the faces of love that surround me now, I see your youthful face among them, a figment of my mind. Perhaps you always were part of my imagination. Perhaps you existed only in my heart, a creation of my mind as a gift to a man so deserving of your presence.

And with that a smile, a tear, and a final breath. A life of possibility had been lived.