A bunch of Keys to Al Jannah

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For you, I'll grieve silently. The same way I kept my feelings clutched in my hands while you were here baring your chest open even though I knew how hard that was for you. I'll do it with my head hung low so your ghost doesn't sit on top of my dreams wondering what all the fuss is about. why now? When all you are is a fragrance above the clouds. Why now? When you are just another breath in the wind and your hands can no longer reach the depths of my soul to squeeze out the apprehension that shook my bones and my trust in men like you.
I'll shed these silent tears and in this overflow, say the words that never left my lips when your eyes searched mine: I love you too. 

They say we speak some words too late. But late doesn't lessen the intent and their truth. Except late has so much weight. Late can crush a single lung with a sigh.
Tell me again what they said about time. How it makes love less appealing with age. How it beckons an emptiness for every age. The itch it places in your hands for another. The feet it has that are full of dust.

But I do not find my comfort in other bodies. My soul was not built with that hunger. I am not afraid of absence and you know it. I do not run blind into the boulevards of white lights and grey shadows waiting for an impact, any impact. I do not scratch the itch in my back with hands that are closest to me. I thrive in the shadows and I have made myself a shelter in the very rugged aisles of fallen petals. Sometimes I pick one and blow it in the wind. Sometimes I crush the fragrance with the soles of my feet. Other times I wonder if the scent of flowers was meant for man or other flowers...and sometimes I want you here again and this time you won't say.

'Here, I'll take this keys from you when I'm back. I'm going for a small check-up'

How long is the hour of grief? What's the largest stretch of time? How close to humans do spirits hover? Say my name until you run out of voice. Whisper it to the ghosts of second chances. Why, say, should I be here and you there? Why, say, did you save my number as 'angel'? Why did you trust me with the white of your skeleton and not the name of your cancer?

But Ji, the dead have no need for questions and I cannot be mad at you for following your soul in it's search for rest from that terminal bug. Ji, you, just like me, never knew what to do with pity. We, the blossoms of apatheia, had no room in our hands for sorrys or hugs, because that was what was familiar, tumbling through life like ghosts, mending years of brokenness with days of isolation. And Ji, I have to give these memories to another. Because Ji you do not let someone tease you when you know you're too sick and Ji, you do not give someone a bunch of keys and then go dying on a hospital bed. And again Ji, dearest Ji, my new year's resolution is for my blood to stop ending and to not fall sick on my birthday, again.

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