I sit you down before me 

Your hands are clasped fingers digging into the whites of your skin 

You are on edge, foot tapping to the rhythm of your hysterical heart 

You can always tell when something’s wrong 

You look around the room at the dying dance of dust devils 

I look behind you at the photo frames that decorate the mantel over the fireplace that burns aglow 

Silver ashes constellate the canvas of black embers on wooden floorboards 

Those photographs on the mantel;  

Film reels of moments when time imploded to birth tapestries of lifetimes  

that are shrines to everything that once was 

In those photographs we are living eternities unaware of this rendezvous in our intertwined faiths 

One of those frames is a gift I got for you from that trip I went two years ago 

It decorates a memory of our faces fastened together like fists forging into clasped lockets 

There you are wearing polka dot leaning against a streetlamp on lovelorn cobblestones of Paris 

There I am; my hand blocking my smile as I look away from the camera lens into something beyond  

Probably the iridescent eclipse of mirages and havens in the creases beneath your eyes 

as you throw your head back and laugh. 

I look at those pictures behind your head,  

Until these memories blur, and my vision escapes me, and I am right here again 

You are waiting,  

Hands tightened, eyes averted, breaths shallow,  

Chest deflating into the cavities between your ribs 

“Tell me, what is it?” 

I lean forward,  

My elbow resting against the crevice of the wooden skeleton of our sofa;  

A specific spot where greyed threads split apart at the seams 

From when our cat chewed them a few years ago; we never got around to fix it 

I lean forward and I reach across the armrests and take your clutched hands within mine 

Your skin is soft;  

My thumb traces circular patterns around the indentations dug in by your nails within your palm 

I fold my hands within yours, and I look up until my eyes meet your gaze 

And there is nothing more and no one else. 

“I love you;  

I love you in ways I can’t even comprehend.  

I love you more than anything and anyone. And I know that you know that.” 

You nod your head yes and your pupils dilate,  

And I can see my fractured frame in their hapless kingdom 

“You are the love of my life.  

The bane of my existence.  

The religion for all my devotion.  

And I need to ask you for your permission to leave.” 

You look at me and I look back, 

And all else fades into peripheries long bygone and dimensions that diminish away 

You don’t understand but when you do, you don’t want to understand 

And I see that slow ebb of hope trickling away  

As the first of salt tides break against the shore of your eye and spill over my castrated carcass, I say, 

“You have given me forevers within these numbered days  

And I will never be able to repay the dreams you have dreamt for me.  

We have done so much good for one another 

And you have lived my life for the both of us  

And I am before you and I thank you.  

But it is time for me to go and I want this to be your decision because all I am is because of you. 

And after all these years, after all these lives, 

My darling, it’s finally time. And it’s your decision to leave. “ 

You are crying now.  

Rivers of grief that drip like soot past your chin until they fall on the Turkish rug that curls beneath our feet 

I can see my life within each of those tears.  

My life with you;  

The dreamscapes etched into fogged up windowpanes of our living room 

Dices rolled against floors,  

And books spread open on laps with your head encased within the crook of my arm 

Guessing games with your fingers tracing their light touch on my back, spelling words that I can’t now recall 

The post-it notes on the bedroom door at our very first apartment on Crosby Street 

Bylines with stupid knock-knock jokes that bejeweled your diaries every morning that summer in Rome 

My letters and their parchment of inked solitude that bequeathed your mailbox the year of your 23^rd  birthday 

And the turquoise we painted your sister’s wall,  

And the lock that bears our initials somewhere on a bridge in London 

Kisses shared before the yellowish headlights of my father’s car 

And eating dinner, cross-legged beneath fluctuating streetlamps at the first violets of dawn 

Polaroids headlined with friends whose faces have blurred with time 

And skating rinks christened with the stains of blood from that time you fell head-first 

Your notes app reminders drilled into my phone,  

And half-full glasses of water with an adornment of multicolored pills lined up on bedside tables 

And the road trips upstate when mahogany leaves filled up the air with scents of firewood smoke 

Bon Jovi on the car radio, sunglasses strewn across painted dashboards,  

Colored canvases littering our living room floor, and my poems taped against the refrigerator door 

And the cakes that we baked, and the linens that wore the shapes of our bodies,  

And the scents that sifted away into listless reveries 

I can see everything.  

In each tearstain that darkens your bluest blouse,  

I can see the infinities that you mapped within all my inevitable endings.  

Now, you ask me if I am sure.  

If this is what I want. 

If this is what I wish for.  

If this is what needs to be done. 

You are taking deep breaths, heavy breaths.  

And I know you are trying all that you can not to fall apart and cripple away into ashen residue that aches astray 

But I also know that you knew.  

And that you have always known.  

That after all is said and done,  

That after all the runed ruminations reciting our reigns,  

After all the living has been rent asunder, my time will have come.  

And now it has come.  

And now I sit before you and ask for your decision to leave. 

Because it is your decision.  

Not mine.  

My decision was made a very long time ago.  

Now it is your decision to let me go.  

You stand and so do I.  

You walk to the fireplace and so do I.  

You pick up your coffee mug;  

Its rims softened by years of lipstick stains, and you sit down by the metal poker 

My bare feet cascade towards your candescent cavern  

And I lower myself before you until we are cross-legged on our wooden floor. 

Reflections of flames in the ivory of your eyes and your fingers interlock with mine 

You bring my hand to your lips and the slight brush of your kiss unwinds all sinews, vine by vine 

Your eyes are closed, and your hands shake but they hold firm to my grasp 

You ask me if there is something you can do to change my mind 

There isn’t.  

But you know that. And I know you do.  

We both stare into the fire as our hearts are set aflame 

And the sun inches away into the throne of the night 

Until our shadows adorn the violets in the wallpaper around us 

You trace your fingertips over the rivets of deadened skin around my wrists  

And I don’t know what you’re thinking 

So I ask, and you part your lips but your breath has nothing to say 

Will it be like last time or will you choose another way? 

I promise something painless, something quiet, something that you can brave 

You nod your head and inch towards me until you are sitting in my lap, with your head beneath my chin 

You bring my arms around you until we are knitted into a cage, within the threads of which you stay 

I kiss your head and all is silent; a stillness to keep my storms at bay 

I dream about the lilac of your sweater, the smell of lavender, and the tulip fields that mystified May 

And the reverence of that kitchen counter; the stains of chocolate bejeweling it’s gray 

And the labyrinthine lovings we stitched into every door and banister in our castle of clay 

And the midnight musings, the mugs strewn across coffee tables, and the ashtrays tossed astray 

And the relics of your mouth against my ear just before you whisper me something 

And the unbuttoned collars and unclasped lockets that I used to fasten every day 

And the dying sun and its tendrils embracing the epiphanies gracing your face 

And how I would burn and burn and burn just to spark silken smiles over that lace 

Oh, how I love you, my incandescent sage,  

Oh, how I love you, my ephemeral age. 

You ask me in whispers that wisp away into wandering effervescence if I could stay 

I don’t say anything as we both know the answer 

And we sit there.  

In silence.  

In memoriam of all that once was. 

And of all that we had and the everythings we discovered in the anythings 

You will ask me later, about the technicalities and the specifics 

About how will I do it this time?  

Will it be pills, will it be nooses, will it be prescription drugs, will it be sharpened shaving razors, 

Or will it be the exhaust from that old SUV we still have parked in our garage, 

Or will it be going softly into eternal sleep, with the kiss of a promised goodbye 

“I don’t know yet,” I will lie.  

But I will promise that I’ll let you know, and I will be honest  

You will ask me if you could hold my hand through it when the time comes 

“Yes, you can,” I will reply 

You’ll ask me about my will and if I have locked it in the safe upstairs 

And about the sealed morgue of letters safely taped to the underside of our bedside table  

And about my belongings, the witnesses of my lovings and my livings 

And about the funeral I might like to have; 

Any particular flower arrangements? 

Open casket or closed? 

Any specifics about the guest list? 

And any location that I have scouted for my grave? 

And which cemetery?  

The one next to the diner with yellowed lights, checkered napkins, and the view of the sea?  

Or the one next to that theatre with the frescoes, 

Where we danced that August night to ‘The Cranberries’ from our shared earphones? 

You will ask me other things,  

My favorite color, names of the kids we might have had in some other life 

Signature dance moves, beloved card games, verbal recitals of my poem that won a first-grade poetry contest 

You will ask me about my love for you. And if it was enough. 

And if it was everything that I could have ever hoped for. 

Everything that I could ever want. Everything that could keep me alive.  

You will ask me if I was ever happy when I was with you 

And I will answer every question.  

Not because you don’t know the answers or because you need a reminder 

But because I owe you at least this.  

The very least for this decision that I ask you for 

I will tell you how much I loved you.  

How much I have lived just for you. And because of you.  

I will tell you that your entwined embraces, your religious touch,  

Kisses I’d forsake all my inevitability for, words that pacified my pandemonium 

Your anythings that I’d leave behind all my everythings for, was enough 

It was eternal.  

It was a history.  

It was a magnificent forever.  

It was the most.  

You are the love of my life. 

The bane of my existence 

The religion of all my devotion 

And I would never have been here, until up to this moment, if it wasn’t for your fraction in time.  

I will tell you all of this.  

I will tell you of things you already know.  

Memories we have recited time and time again, 

Musings we have studied time and time again, 

Dreams we have discussed time and time again, 

I will tell you everything. 

And the first indigoes of dawn will seep through the mirages in the twilight sky  

Andromeda will fluctuate into desecrated embellishments spelling our initials 

Clocks will tick past into this irreverent night, and you will sleep in my embrace 

Your fingernails digging into my skin, drawing blood, but I won’t say a thing 

Your shirt will be drenched with tears, white stains from saltish smears painting it silver 

And I will kiss your temples, and pray for your beautiful brain 

The only sanctuary that will house the memory of my life.  

The souvenir of my existence and the ode to my legacy 

And I will pray for your heart and how it will now live for the both of us 

It will now love and yearn and dream and hope and want for the both of us 

And I will pray for the lovers you will beguile in the years to come,  

And the children that will someday grow to replace my shrine in your mind 

And the vacations you will have, the marriages you deserve,  

The birthdays and anniversaries that will grace the mantel over the fireplace instead of these photographs of me 

And I will pray for you, my love, my beloved, my beautiful, beautiful solace,  

I will pray for you. 

And your glimpse that I yearn to witness in some other realm than this,  

In some other lifetime than this,  

In some other dimension than this 

And I will wait in my death for your soul, until this universe collapses and dies into nihilistic nothings 

I will wait for your home, and I will pray for that 

Until the sky is blue again and the first of the morning light escapes into this lovesick room  

And the embers of the dying fire will still shimmer orange in their belligerent radiance 

And I will pray and hold you tighter  

Until my hands are slippery with blood from your grasp and kiss you every few fragmenting seconds 

And thank you for your permission 

And thank you for your decision to leave 

And I will stay here, for the rest of my days, in this gold room that glitters brilliantly with infinite love 

Until it’s time for me to part ways and leave behind 

You; the manifestation of all the lives I could have ever dreamed of living  

I love you, I love you, I love you. 

And I will dip my head until my lips press against the soft bones of your ear, 

And I’ll close my eyes and breathe in your scent,  

And I’ll whisper, my voice as soft as sun-kissed September summers  

“So, I’ll go,  

And you’ll stay 

And we’ll be okay.”