The Mural

The Mural

“Tomorrow I’ll be gone.”

Now, laying here in this half empty bed, I keep hearing those words. I didn’t want to accept them and I didn’t want to believe you meant it. It’s not like we haven’t had this conversation before, but it’s us. And this can’t be us.

It was only a few hours ago that you were here.

Right beside me, legs intertwined while you slept peacefully. I would brush the hair out of your face or comb my fingers through it while I rubbed your head. It used to comfort you. I used to comfort you.

I thought we had a few more decades of the cold season in this bed together.

I don’t want to open my eyes and look next to the empty space beside me. Because that means yesterday, and all days before it are gone for good. And even worse, that last conversation was real-- "I'm sorry." I don't want apologies, it won't undo our undoing.

The walls are filled with memories themselves…

Dates we’ve been on, meals we’ve made, the disagreements that led to sex, the music you made just for these ears of mine.

“I painted a mural just for you. Open your eyes and you’ll see all of my memories of you. When you’re ready, look at the walls and there they’ll be.”

I dreaded opening my eyes for the fears of accepting the inevitable truth– you are gone.

But still, knowing that dark truth, I now yearned for what would still be alive of us that you embedded in these walls.

I sat up with eyes still closed and drew the longest, heaviest breath.

I fiddled with the chain around my neck with one hand, while resting the other over the no longer sunken-in side of the bed. The right side was always your side.

As much as I would rather relive any memory of us– a kiss, a fight, an inside joke, anything. I knew I couldn’t keep my eyes shut forever.

Still puffy and red from the endless crying, you would think my allergies took a turn for the worst. I didn’t have it in me to let the tears out in front of you, I couldn’t, not this time. So here I was, swallowing any leftover drops that hadn’t completely dried from the sleepless night before and fighting a returning headache.

And there they were.

At first, all my mind could process was colors and shapes, like when your eyes aren’t entirely open and you’re slowly letting the light in. I had to let the light in now.

The colors were so engaging here, bright and full of life as shapes of two people began to take form.

Our first date– how annoying I felt by talking so much but you didn’t mind it. "I like listening to you to talk" you would always say. That night we had yogurt and you admitted that you hardly ever had sugar because it got you all jumpy, it was the first time I saw your dorky side, my favorite side.

How the years have aged us, and how I wish that night didn’t seem so far away now.

Then, the first time you held my hand when you met my friends for my birthday. How proud I felt to call you mine. Suddenly, the first kiss. You had me from the first and I told you so. I’ll admit I was the first to say “I love you” but it didn’t matter to me then and it doesn’t now, I will always feel the same.

The images and colors began to swirl in different directions, as if a painter was stirring his brush to rid the canvas of his creation and start over entirely. And suddenly, a new collection of memories appeared on the wall before me. The colors were much darker here, not as vibrant as before.

Our first fight– how stupid it seems now and yet how it felt like the first red flag that I ignored. There were many more to come ahead. How unnerving that the person who made you feel on top of the world one day could also make you feel so small inside the next. I see myself crying, and I could see you struggling. There are fights that should have ended us but the words you spilled out always found just the right way to keep me.

I was so young then. Barely had passed my teen years, yet I thought I could handle adult conversations or worries. Now I’m an adult ready for the hard conversations without you. There was more than one breakup for us, but they always blur into one giant hole in my stomach.

All of our fights. The drunk nights, the worst ones. I’m not proud and there was nothing in this part that I truly wanted to remember but I knew you left it as a reminder of how hard we fought, or fought for each other. The pictures begin to shift and swirl from one scene to the next. Nearly eight years of dates, fights, love making, laughs, tears, everything. The mural itself would never hold all of the colors that make up the memories of us.

I have come to accept there are circumstances that surround us that are not my place to fix or to change. I hope the new path for you is filled with fewer obstacles and that you find a place where you can be happy, even if I can’t be part of the new mural you find yourself in.

I don’t think any mural will be painted as grand or passionately enough to hold everything of us. No mural, no picture, nothing I could ever completely put into words as a writer.

But now I’m ready to open my eyes and see all the colors we made together,

and let the light in.