you only live forever in the light you make

The desert stretched behind you and behind me, went on and on. It' was a wasteland to most people; me and you thought it was beautiful at dusk. To many people don't know what colors are conjured as the sun goes down; the way everything blazes orange, brown, red and hazy blue.

The picture floated to the ground only a few seconds after I snap it.

“You got it?” You looked at me, arms wavered.

I bent over and picked it up, brushed dust off the edges.

And I can see it clearly now, see what I'll be doing when you're gone. It'll be me and a stack of glossy polaroids, without you. Me running an overheated motor, but without you in the passenger side.

I looked up to meet your expecting smile, couldn't deny you by not smiling back.

“It's perfect.”

*

When you fall in love with someone, you deny everything logical.

When we first met there was no logic to either of our lives. I was a dead-end kid, you always stuck inside of your own head with an empty smile. We were both messed up; me impulsive and you hesitant.

The only point in my life was the band, that was the future I was going to expend on. You laughed and laughed when I told you, asked me how I knew it was going to work out? I said it was, I had a gut feeling. I asked what you were going to do, and you told me you thought you were going to stay with your family forever. I asked you, how do you know that's going to work out?

After we met more nights than not you'd take me back home, we'd usually be half naked when they'd started calling for you outside your room. More nights than not I'd be shooting out of the room through the window, clothes over my arm. Loving you was what kept me going, brought this rush.

I always asked you to run away with me, you said tomorrow almost every day. Tomorrow, tomorrow.

“Frank?”

We whisper.

“Yes?” A certain hush is over your room, the only thing breaking the silence is the beeping of your machine. I counted how many seconds it has in between each beep; ten. I counted out the seconds over a month ago; this machine makes a different one than your first.

And the silence goes, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

“Do you know what dying is?”

I don't know what dying is, I just know what it's like to think someone is dead. I know what the pain of death is, and what death brings to people. But that's all I know. I used to know so much more, be able to answer all your questions about life because your parents didn't let you know about living.

But this is something I can't explain to you.

“Not really.” Your hand is cold in mine. I can see every vein, every tiny bone. I want to trace them all with my fingertips, trace every vein up and down your legs, feel every heartbeat and tell you it's okay, it's okay.

“I don't want you to be to upset about this,” You say, eyes falling on our hands. “I'm selfish and I don't want to see you move on, but I want you to move on later. Just don't forget about me.”

One night you said you'd run away with me. My car had been running for a long, long time a few driveways away from yours; the motor overheating because my vehicle was terrible. I was afraid your parents would kill me when they found out about us, afraid they already killed you when I didn't hear from you for two months after they did find out. Afraid I was the one to kill you.

So get me out of my head
Cause it's getting kind of cramped you know
Coming ready or not
When the motor gets hot
We can do it again

I think the only reason you came with me—the only reason you stayed with me—was because I was the only person who had ever been able to get you out of your head. I was the only person who asked you if it was cramped in there, asked if you'd come out. I think the only reason I pursued you and fought for you so belligerently was because you were the only person I ever fell in love with.

There's nothing I know to say right now, nothing I can say because death is something I don't understand. When we first got together I could explain everything; wanted to tell you things about everything because you were always in awe. I could tell you about important things, all the way down to stupid facts about what state we were driving through and you still thought it was incredible.

When you first started losing all this weight because of your disease, you asked me if I thought you were ugly. You were embarrassed of your own body, afraid to wear anything that wasn't inches thick. I told you that I always thought you were beautiful; what I never told you what it felt like to be inches closer to your heartbeat every time your disease made you lose more of yourself.

We had a conversation about you dying before, because we knew it was happening. The first night you were put in the hospital, I learned it was inevitable. We spent hours and hours talking about it, and now I know how close we are to it. It's been long awaited, something that was always on my mind but took me a long time to accept it as going to happen.

I don't cry, don't fight, don't scream because of the injustice of this.

“What can I do?” I ask.

You look at me, run your hand down my face. Your lips are dry and cracked, but they pull up into this smile that's all so familiar to me. It's a smile I thought I'd see billions of times, never knew that someday I'd treasure it whenever I saw it because it had a date on it.

“I think this is the last time you'll be able to hold me.”

I don't think hospital rooms are supposed to have locks on the inside, but yours does. Maybe because you've become more than a temporary patient, maybe because this room seemed to have become your own.

I lock the door with a hand that's not shaking, not like it shook the first time I locked the door to your room all the way back before we ran away together.

It's hard to get to your body underneath all the tubes, they seem to dwarf you but now that I've seen you underneath them so many times they to overpower you like the first time I saw you under them. I move them, you lift your hand so I don't get caught in your I.V, we laugh when I bump my face on it when you attempt to do the opposite.

Your body is so cold but your breath is so warm, coming out between your teeth behind cracked lips formed into a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful smile and God, oh God, oh God why can't I fix this why.

It doesn't bother me that you are skeletal, you're still Jenny. It doesn't make me sad anymore, I see past the physical and I can look you in the eyes evenly now. I still think you're beautiful.

I touch every little bump in your spine, kiss your neck up and down; let you do the same despite your cold skin and how sharp your bones are when your hips are pressing into mine. Your voice has gotten thinner.

I think you grow up when you find out that the physical is really nothing, grow from a child to an adult when you love someone despite that. You've got scars and I've got marks, and we're both probably ugly naked. For some reason though, together I think we're the most gorgeous people in the world.

You don't say much after we're done because you're tired, but I say all these things to you, say everything I want to say. I let my words run together, know you just want to hear my voice. I tell you about how glad I am you came with me, how glad I am that you came out of your head and ran away with me. I tell you how glad I am that I married you—

The week we found out you were going to die you told me I didn't need to still marry you. I begged you to marry me, told you that I still did want to. We'd been engaged for two months, and while you were healthy we had been planning on waiting a year before we got married.

Originally we spent late nights picking out our bridesmaids and groomsmen, what the wedding topper would look like, if we'd have a tiny venue or have a huge one with the best bar you could find in Los Angeles. That's what it was like, but after we found out about your illness what we were doing was calling to see who would marry us just by paper and word of mouth within the next twenty-four hours.

No one knew.

We got married with just a paper and pen, wrote our names and kissed. We dropped off the face of the earth for a full week as soon as we got our marriage papers, spent our nights in cheap motels and started driving as soon as the sun came up. No one knew where we went, and it was the best week of my life. The week was made of polaroid pictures, chasing the moon down the dessert skyline to see how close we could get, made of you and me sunbathed in the colors you can only get out there.

We never told anyone we were married. It was one of those things you just didn't tell anyone, something that no one needed to know. Me and you were private people already, and we decided that this was one of those things that was more meaningful kept secret. One of those things we were going to take to our grave.

I get out of bed when I'm sure your asleep, try to dress you again around all the tubes and needle and lines.

As I wait by your bedside while you sleep, the silence goes like: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

*

“Frank, it's almost two in the morning. They probably lock the place up, you jackass.”

“No, no,” I shook my head, persisted to be adamant about it. “I've been there before. When we get up there, you'll forget you're even tired.”

You just threw your arms in the air, and closed your eyes like you were sleeping for the rest of the drive. We'd been driving on Mulholland Drive for about twenty minutes, and I was getting confused about what overlook we were going to and afraid the bottom of my car was going to get messed up when the paved road became a dirt one.

“Jenny, we're here.” I shook her awake, she groggily sat up. “See we can drive in to the overloo—”

“Then why's there a shut gate?” You mumbled. “I told you so, I don't know why you insisted to come up this far. We can just come see the view some other time.”

“Ah, fuck.” I tried to turn around, hands playing tug of war with the steering wheel. The tires balked on the gravel, and I tried to ease my way back but succeeded in going into the gutter.

You laughed into your hands.

Desperate and beaten, I turned off the car. It was peaceful without the sound of the tires grinding on the gravel, without the bright headlights and being bounced around from the pits in the road.

In the darkness, I was that much more aware of my fast pulse I was trying to hide from you, more aware of the way you were sitting besides me and how I was so stupid most of the time.

“Jenny, I—”

“Shit, Frank, what'd you do?” You sounded nervous.

“No, no.” I laid my head on the steering wheel.”I just need to ask you something, like...” I searched for words, tried to bring that entire night back around to what I set out to do in the first place.

“If you don't hurry I'm just going to fall asleep,” you threatened.

My words came out fast, blurted out and finally I was done with it. “Will you marry me?”

We were staring at one another, I could barely see you in the dark or your expression.

But hell, I felt you kiss me. You were laughing, laughing and kissing me and it all blended together and all I knew was that I was so glad.

I remember this as the happiest night of my life.

Notes

memories are obviously in italics haha

comment if you actually read this/or read this because i haven't updated because i figured no one reads it anyways