Your body covered by blue-checked hills and valleys of cheap, worn cotton. Without movement, just the sigh, hiccup, and breath of their machines. Cheap, synthetic lighting, disrespectful of this moment. I barely touch the tear-stained chair. Weight on the balls of my feet, leaning in. I will be close to you.

My gaze strokes your figure.

The calluses on your fingertips that you we’re so proud of: “love bites from the strings.”

The fate line I read for you, running strong and smooth. It looks faded to me now.

The powder blue veins like roots, a web too intricate and erethreal for my comprehension.

The crook of your arm. My Friday nights, the memories fuzzy and faded and (un)forgettable.

The collarbone, sharp and sudden, but beautiful; a wave on the smooth, pale sea of you.

The crossbow lips, no longer pressing together in a wicked smirk or making people laugh.

The deep purple smudges heavily etched under silent, eyelashes .

The pastel scar on your brow left by the cat who wouldn’t accept your love. She’d accept it now.

You still seem you, even without those quirky actions that are yours alone to me. Like the particular way you make your tea, trying to outwhistle the kettle, and your nighttime ritual of wishing all of your pets good night no matter how long it takes you to hunt them down, and the annoying obsession you have with identifying the birds outside the window. You would hate it; there are no tea kettles, pets, or windows here.

I drop a velvet kiss on your knuckles, then your shadowed temple. Touch my thumb to your cheek and push back that forever out-of-place curl. The desolate space between my ribs tightened and my eyes sting. I stand, refusing to let these devilish drops join their  brethren from different woes as a stain on the seat.

I try not to look back, but I’m no superhero.

I try not to cry, but I can’t fight the laws of the natural world.

I tried to save you.