“Stop playing in the shallows!” I want to scream in her direction, yet remain silent in my own repose.  She is where she has chosen to be, and I leave her as the mistress of her own destiny.

Still, I have my indignation. I can hear her soul screaming out to the ether demanding something more. I can see it in the faux, two-dimensional smiles she shares. I can see it in her absent stillness, and feel in the remarkable dreams she once had shared.

I could see it in her disdain as I pulled away, lost in a battle I needed to wage alone, and could feel it in the moment she realized there was nothing she could do. There it was, a microcosm of all there is, in a single raindrop streaming down her face.

We still adore each other, in that there is a certainty. When warriors find their frailty, it is their love that holds them steady. When cuts bleed and wounds appear, it is the love that shines on through. When a man can no longer stand on his own two feet, it is his lover that holds him steady.

One cannot understand the strength of things bound in the hands of such a love unless he has been there himself. One cannot understate the notion that we are brought together and driven apart, by events and circumstances not of our choosing. Still, we are creatures of choice, both blessed and burdened by the very free will that defines us. Sometimes the strong survive, sometimes the dust wins.

I will never know when that last first kiss is coming, nor will I know when that only final kiss will arrive. Yet, I know that first dates need never end, and that a single kiss can be stretched into an eternal act that heaven itself cannot contain. I know that tears are not forever, weakness often fades, and “goodbye” is rarely the end of things.  I know that one day I will type my last, sigh a single, final breath, and fade from view like a cloud on a summer’s day.  Yet, I will never stop loving you. Even in the way we do, the promise of two friends holding hands in the sunlight, of two humans who so thoroughly understand one another, this cannot fade. The Universe is built on such intentions, and though stars made change and heavens may fade away, that which holds them dear lives on forever.

That is the forever bond. That is the promise we are given at conception and the promise we pass on in our final moment. It is the smile, the tear, the joy and the heartbreak we all choose to experience. It is two worlds colliding, a star exploding, a galaxy birthed around the very blackness that will destroy it. It is the beginning and end of things that truly never begin and certainly never end. I love you, and I always will. One day, I will write it in the stars.