Cherry Blossoms - July 5, 2011

AN: Why is everything I write so sad?     

        Soft black shadows dapple your hands and mine. Light flickers between slender branches, shifting your face from light into darkness. Our feet scuffle in blushing petals that litter the soft black earth.

        This is our last walk together.

        Your pale smooth scalp is out of place here, the only surface without new life, new growth. I remember we joked about you losing your hair. I could still laugh back then, when the signals of disease were few and far between. You can still laugh now.

        Even though it's your life we're losing. Even though I'm the only person who can still stand to look you in the eye. Even though you used to race me down this whole path and win every time, and now you can't walk five steps without falling.

        I wish, just once, you would cry instead.

        But now I'm crying, hot tears seeping through the cracks in my defense and dripping onto your shoulder. Gently, your soft fingers wipe them away. I know if you had the strength to speak, you would tell me not to worry. If either of us had the strength to speak right now.

        Another pink and white flower breaks away from the branch above us and drifts downward, spiraling past our eyes. We catch it together.

        If only could catch you and hold you here forever, never letting you fall to the ground. I want to stay here with my fingers laced with yours until we turn to stone.

        You release the crushed and crumpled petals and wrap your arms around me instead, burying your face in my hair. "I love you," you murmur in a dry whisper, barely able to muster a sound. "I always will."

        I know that.

        But what will happen when you're no longer here to remind me? Who will I turn to when you're gone? When you die and I can't reach you anymore?

        When you die and leave me here, alone with the cherry blossoms?

-Alex Rush