save me.

'save me,' you breathed, dropping those words gently into my ear from your full, red lips.
save me. a time bomb in the form of a time bomb.
i just didn't know you meant it.

+

'there is nothing better than a brisk day in December,' you told me, our hands beneath wool gloves clasped together.
you took pictures of our intertwined fingers and the corners of our mouths as they touched.
the trees were skeletal and the cardinals that perched sporadically in them gave the illusion that they were bleeding.
bleeding skeletal trees frozen in Central Park, captured by your camera lense.
this is what we were surrounded by as we walked hand in hand, your voice like wind chimes.
playful and light, coming and going with the breeze.
it just took me a while to realize that my love was the breeze that fueled you.
but by then, you had grown mute, your wind chimes dropped to the ground.

+

we stood in your kitchen and your slight shoulders were draped with a blanket your mother had knit.
it was soft and you kept it folded when it wasn't being used.
it was special to you as you hugged it close to yourself, steam visibly rising from the mug you held.
you put it down on the messy table and picked up your camera, snapping a picture of my groggy morning self.
my hair was messy and my face was scruffy, but you looked at me as if i was perfection.
as if i didn't have scars on my hands from being clumsy.
as if i didn't have a crooked nose from fighting.
as if i didn't have chapped lips from letting the winter air get at me.
as if i was filled with love.
that was your only mistake, to believe that i was filled with love when really i was running out of it.
and i couldn't find or stop the leak.

+

'i love you more than anything. you put a smile on my face whenever i see you.
my heart pounds whenever i see your name pop up on my phone.
or whenever i see your face pop up in my camera memory.
when i wake up next to you, i want to lay there with you forever.
you are my everything. don't forget that.'
how could i forget your love?
and how could i forget it when it was scrawled out on your suicide note?
howhowhow?

+

it had been one week and two days since i had broken up with you.
my love had run out but we ran into each other on the street, your camera dangling from your neck.
you smiled but i could see the bags underneath your eyes crying out for sleep to come and take them away.
i said hey and you asked how i had been.
we talked until you had to go, you were going to miss your train across town.
when you hugged me i was caught by surprise, loosely embracing you back as you clung to me.
'save me,' you breathed and when you pulled away, tears in your eyes, i didn't know what to do.
you did not take a picture as i nodded a goodbye and scurried off.

+

it was the next day i received a call that said i had been mentioned by name in a suicide note.
the note written by you before you hung yourself.
they wanted to talk to me and i said sure before i hung up and promptly collapsed to the floor.
i shook violently for what seemed like hours, not even being able to stand when they called me back and left a message.
they told me they had found a book, a scrap book, filled with pictures of us together.
kissing, holding, hugging, walking, talking, eating, breathing, sleeping.
they asked if i would like to have it but i did not reply as my teeth chattered and shook my skull.

+

they knocked on my door and eventually pushed their way in to see if i had killed myself too.
i had not; i lay asleep where i had collapsed.
when i awoke, i found your mother's blanket that still smelled like you draped over me.
i wanted to throw up and cry at the same time, but i did neither.
i lay still until your face was the only image in my mind.
until you were the only thing in my life.

+

i would go on living.
you would be dead.
i would keep the scrap book and blanket in a box in my future attic in my future home which i would live in with my future wife and kids.
i would never forget you, the one i did not love.