No Flights to Reykjavik

I don’t have many things left, but I have more than most. But really, that all depends on if one’s memories and imagination can now be considered a quantifiable, valuable asset. Since present reality is so disturbing, I tend to believe it is.

Its shine has a more settling warmth than the flames that lick the walls we once built and named and announced were steadfast and sturdy. Like a dusty dollar bill with half a man’s face, it won’t fill my stomach. But it fills my bones with an aching relief that reminds me that there is more than oblivion waiting.

Though I won’t be able to tell it to another soul, I feel as though my fragments will make a remarkedly good bedtime story.

It’s so funny to think that I used to fret to the point of paralysis about wasting time. Time to help our world survive this cataclysmic change, time to make a life, time to wonder about love.

I still miss you just as much as I did sitting in that empty apartment in Boston, when honking cars and seagulls and empty plastic bags flitted past, and one could still see. Everything felt chaotic simply in its uncertainty, even though no walls crumbled, and the sirens heralding death had not yet thrust its first fiery breath into the air.

I yearn for your hand and the darkening streets of Reykjavik.

I wonder if any of the seven different supermarkets you had silently checked for Flaming Hot Cheetos are still open.

As I lie in America, in this old, angry world rusting where it hasn't burst into flame, I wonder if your love would have saved me… or if nothing would have changed. We probably share the same flames.

I used to tell myself that the thought of you burrowed in my brain served as the same type of coping mechanism as my books; a bit of fiction to bury my mind into to cope with the uncertainty and the sadness. That it held me back from boldness and my own betterment. Now, I fear only this fiction will set me free.

In this unsettling void where ashes fall instead of snow, and the fear of getting my heart torn out supersedes any fitful machinations of my mind, the thought of you fills my lungs with a welcome, icy blast of air. Mourning lost love, once toxic to moving forward, has become the soap that cleans me on the inside and reminds me that I can still breathe.

I clutch a crumpled picture folded as small as it can go, like creases of time I wish so wildly I could slip back into. I still remember how fake grumpy you were at me and my disposable camera for stealing the unguarded moment. I care less now, as staring at it gives me a flicker of happiness to think of all the time spent in bed with you. Ignored alarms to let my tired body sleep. Tickles and shared sweets and hidden notes and the home I made for my head in the cavity of your chest. I used to try to push these thoughts away, back when the world still ran. I ached from the empty, crumbling abyss I supported in my chest.

Pure irony can be mined in the real, lifeless, crooked black holes smiling below. They are arguably much, much worse. I could quite literally roll into one right now and never fear again.

Earth stands regardless of the grip humanity has on it. The things that rest upon it may burn, may be stolen away, may be ripped, crushed, and blackened beyond recognition. Whether you, on your island, still stand tall is beyond me. But it doesn’t matter much anymore.

And if I’m really hanging right over the edge, I’d rather pretend to feel your warm breath on my neck instead of smoke and let my body relax into its once familiar roll into your arms. I will pretend this concrete crushing my shins is the irritating knot of tangled sheets, that the fires I see punching furious fists into the sky are the hints of a blood-red, mid-morning sunrise.

It seemed inefficient to constantly mourn a face I knew I might never see again, though the flight from Boston to Reykjavik really would have been so short. A skip above an ocean that now shows only ever-rising, sharpening jaws. If I could, I’d kick myself for letting my pride keep me from running back to you. Now, there are no flights left to Iceland.

I wish I had something sturdier to clutch to my chest to remind me of you. Oh, if only you’d had a fit of romanticism and given me a heart-shaped locket to bury my own into.

So, I'll just pretend my heart is made of iron and enclose you within it with an echo-less clang. Although it screams and pounds its fists, my world feels quiet. Still, I can only hear your ghost.

It seems so silly that people once feared even the thought of spirits. Now, yours is all the light I have left. I wish we were back in bed.