in a dead language - vmon

vii.

Sometimes I think about how I won't forget you for as long as I live. When I tell you, you kiss me softly and bury your neck in my face and because I'm ticklish, I giggle like I wasn't just thinking about—

"You can't forget the love of your life," you say, and I know that, but it's not what I meant.

I can't tell you what I meant, though; how can I tell you that I won't let you go even if I have to? How can I tell you that some nights it feels like you're about to slip away from me, like holding you feels like holding sand in the water, like sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, loving you is what you feel like you are — a flame waiting to burn out with the slightest gust of wind, the kind a bullet shooting through the air would leave behind? A bomb waiting to explode, and maybe it's the chemistry we share or just a molotov cocktail or a landmine that slept for decades, awaiting in its slumber the self-assured footstep of an adventurer, or the skips and twirls of just another child who strayed just a little far from home? A moment waiting to pass by in a world where moments don't wait, because time doesn't ever stop running?

I'm sorry.

"Even if you weren't," and I know you are, being the optimist I am, I swear I do, but sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, I'm a pessimist and I feel like I'll lose you before I grow, and at other times I'm a realist and I feel like I'll lose you before you grow. "I'd never forget you. I don't think anyone would. I'd remember you the way people remember Achilles."

"People never remember Achilles without Patroclus," you say. "It's their story, not just his."

I want to disagree because I know that too, but that's not what I meant. Instead, I just shrug and close my eyes as you pull me into your arms.

My head's against your chest and the steady thump, thump, thump of your heart is a lullaby I fall asleep to while thinking over and over that's not what I meant, that's not what I meant, that's not what I meant—

And then I'm asleep, and my thoughts sink until they reach the bottom of my mind with another soft thump, and they're irrelevant, forgotten, as dead as the skeletons they lie with.

(But later on, when I'm awake, they still haunt me. I try to tell myself, how can I think about remembering you as though you're not right here, in front of me, flesh under my fingertips and blood in my teeth? How can I fear forgetting you when your kisses will bruise me for days and your promises will keep me alive for years?

I try to tell myself these thoughts are dead, but they still haunt me when I'm awake and alone, when the skeletons crawl back to the surface, brought back to life by the most irrelevant triggers, proving to me how memories — how trauma — can sink, but doesn't always drown.)

You're alive. I think I'm alive too.

(Until we are not.)