I wish you weren’t dead. I wish you weren’t a pale, rotting recollection, an echo etched into my skin as wrinkles and smile lines, bruises and scraped knees. I wish I could touch you instead of phasing through your cold, lingering embers. I wish you were with me, warm and safe, in a place we both understand. I can hardly bear the distance, so close in proximity.

The music we made, does it still exist on a hard drive buried deep in a distant world more forgiving than ours? The sound of your melodic bass mixing with my electronic synthesizer was never the best, but it was ours. We held it so carelessly, just as we clung to each other.

Until death do us part, and until I depart, you are a memory veiled by death, a lingering afterimage. A parallel world away.

I should be grateful, shouldn’t I? For the gift I have that's led me back to you,

the gift to see through the veil.