Happy Birthday, Wherever You Are Now
I can’t wait until Thursday when your actual birthday hits. I can’t face that day yet. You’re just gone and I feel it everywhere. I’d do terrible things to have one more night like we used to have—wine dark and sad, music soaking into everything, talking until the apartment went cold, knowing I could be myself with you. Mona, come back. This is killing me.
I remember being in the bath, steam hanging in the air, my head drowning. You came in quietly, closed the door, got in with me. You asked me something vulnerable—something you asked when you needed to know you were loved. I told you the truth. You smiled, poured champagne, held me close. The dark thoughts scattered. I felt wanted. I felt safe.
I keep reading the old texts, clicking through your playlists. I think about all the days we should have had together but didn’t. The senselessness of it still hurts. You were brilliant. You are brilliant. Mona, I know all my words dissolve into nothing anyway, into the infinite, but I want you to hear them. I want you to know how much we loved you. I want you to give me that smile—the one where you believed everything would be okay. Because then I’d believe it too. Then I’d smile back.