August(#DEC2016)

The First

August...

Do you still think of me like I think of you?

It's already the first day of the holidays. Yesterday, I was bombarded by that sea of teenagers, struggling to escape from our saving grace of education. I was one of them, hoping that today, today...today, would finally be different.

For both of us.

August the first, how you remind me of the name, the bittersweet pressing of lips - and hearts - together, the flaming pyre of a summer romance. The car you were so proud of, the small red one that you managed to afford by working two jobs at a time. Yes, I remember this.

Your insistence that I didn't need anything else and my beautiful, tragic reliance on every word that fell from your lips. The lips of a slightly older boy: a man, soon. Would he still have grinned at me tripping up on the pavement and getting ice-cream on my nose? Or would he be above it all, requesting maturity at a time where innocence was so valuable?

Hey, August...did you know you lied to me? On the day you drove me home, the corners of your mouth upturned for the last time. Did my fear and sadness mean nothing to you? I regret so many things, and my only memory of that is a splintered chair, and your pained look. You left me then, and I waited for you to glance back, but you never waited for me. Even when it was too late.

God I'm tipping over the precipice, thinking of what you did. Our last summer together, on this day a year ago, you held me. It was so tightly, and I'd never felt so...wanted in my life. It gave me purpose, meaning, sustenance from the fruit of your existence. With only the intention to get drunk in the attention you gave me, I ended up being pulled in, and now I'm drowning.

Your body was like fire, the very epitome of everything you stood for. Heat. Warmth. But sometimes, too stifling. Like summer, you took my time away from me, and my joyful years. I feel so young - yet so old - thinking of your touch, and the sweet pain which made me gasp. Our decisions, were they smart? We laid together, and contrary to your parents' angry belief, it wasn't an attack towards them.

It was a rebellion against the system which patronised us -the young, the ones who fought- and the love that we held for one another.

For a moment, we ruled the world. And then, you left. I was furious when I heard; the entire town shook in fear as I upturned it, searching, searching. But I didn't find you. And I never would, ever again.

August, I got a job while you were gone. It was filling artillery shells with my finnicky fingers, the ones you had kissed not a week earlier, saying they were precious and delicate. They are rough, uneven and strong now. Perhaps even strong enough to withstand the truth of us, one day. Strong enough to keep this memory of us in a picture by my side forever. I hated the one of you in uniform: it disfigured your joyful expression, morphing it into one of a sinking stone. You knew as well as I did, August, that once something has been lost, it can never be regained.

I suppose that while you were there, you found someone else. Otherwise, why would the rushed letters be so sparse, and in such careless writing? Oh, I jest. I know what ripped you apart, like the corners of the crumpled paper. Inside, I hope most of my letters never reached you: they were ungrateful, venemous, desperate. How stupid I was to ask you to leave, when you were already buried so far beneath the ground that no light could reach your empty eyes again.

August, this is my repentance. You were a blazing fire, which I touched momentarily before it was snuffed out. But I was burned by it, the heat so intense that even now, I cry out when I think of you. At one point we breathed together as one, and we were. But now, what do I have to say? Nothing. The wind and a gunshot has snatched our conversation away like a crushed butterfly.

The last letter is left unopened even now: I know what it says. I don't need that pain again. It tears me open, and yet you were always the one who bled for me.

You know, I did always love you. But I'm certain you knew that, August. To you, I imagine that would have made the sacrifice more necessary. But not to me. Never, never, never to me.

When you finally returned home, your parents wouldn't let me see you. From start to finish, they always interfered with our relationship. But I wanted to see you: I wanted to see what they'd done to you. I wanted to see your dead body, to confirm it to my splintering heart. And so, I stood outside your house, waiting for three days, until I collapsed.

It's funny isn't it, how they took me to the hospital, believing that I was mentally unfit, when these mad old men and women had sent you away to your death? The most important thing to me had been taken; what did they expect?

As easily as a breath leaving the lungs, our love had balance. I wonder if we were punished for not suffering sooner?

I never told you how I truly felt before. My heart's poetry seemed pretentious and stupid before now. Maybe it still is, and I'm blind. But I still want to remember it. All of it. I will fight this sadness, like you fought for our future.

Your body used to be hot, and firm. That small scar under your left eye and soft five o'clock shadow marked you as premature for WWII. You had dreams, goals, ambitions! But now, I'm standing before you once more. Except, it's different; it's heartbreaking. Your skin has become stone. Your body is now missing a leg, the only representation of your life and your mind a small, replicated cross in this church yard.

A year ago, I was still imagining how it would feel to brush my fingertips across the cold slabs as a removed witness in a white gown. August, you would be at my side, holding my hand and devoting your life to mine, bringing us together.

Now, none of it matters.

It's the 1st of August, and you're still gone. It's the 1st of August, and my life carries on while yours has ceased.

It's the 1st of August, and I'm writing to try and feel something inside once more. And so I stand here and whisper painfully to the wind:

I love you...

I love you...

I love you...

August.