Their version of history. Their eyes. Caught. In a spiderweb of memories, both lovers; no, something more connected; a husband and a wife are here to recall, not renew, their vows. Together, until death do the both of them apart. Until the rottenness of flesh will tear one asunder into the earthen grey, while the other floats in the stinging space of shed physical attachment. The husband is like a star who is losing sight of its surroundings, its galaxy. Moment after moment, connected dots are no longer seen of their connections. A swirling group of masses will become locked in stagnant place, as they will, for a time, be lost to blindness. It is all those things around him that were representative of many collected symbols, of those that resonate with the past going into infinity.
Many things that were surrounding him. Memories of many moments that originated from a larger essence, a bigger star, as one massive sun that will go out.
His wife, his love, the most beautiful of all figures lays upon a porcelain bed, covered with clay sheets molded onto her still-perfect figure to his eyes. In his eyes, she remains as everything as eternity will depict. Still as beautiful, as the time they first met. The ripple of the covers upon her form, closest to himself as he is seated next to her, are dotted with stains from teardrops. Her mouth shows a glimmer that would not be due to life when it now fades, though is because of his kisses. Still the same, that kiss, as the first that, despite death creeping in upon her here, keeps its warmth beyond all delicacy.
But when the two of them are holding hands, reminiscing to endless hours upon what will both haunt and be laid to rest, there is one question being repeated. From one set of lips that are weakly torn open to speak, to the other pair that with its brittle strength can only utter the sentence out of what it clings to. That sentence is, “Are you leaving, or am I?”
It’s a question told from the husband to what is obvious. Whereas it’s a question told from the wife to what does seem to sit still, though reverberates and quivers as though to soon shatter and disappear.
Her form, her eyes, of what is fading, then staring, observed that her husband is doing the same to her limited awareness. Love reignites in the dynamic detonations of dynamite, for the contents of his earthen form made of the fading light from a once-lit fuse to spill upon her to conceal her in his memory’s grave. All that, at one moment, while he is seeing her, settling with her back to the earth, the sea, the depth of his history, breaking into the coziness of the longest rest apart from his arms.
“Are you leaving, or am I?” says the husband, the repetition as one wave before it recedes back to his mouth.
“Are you leaving, or am I?” says the wife, her open lips releasing air, as though the faintest gust of the most powerful wind, enough to pull, not push, him closer to hear her.
They dance in the final moments to this repeated question. They dance in each other’s stars, their histories becoming blank for what will be grieved upon, though life will return to life in a closer recollection. Life will return to him, and to her upon when he is able to relive her in himself. One more teardrop will bloom a flower from roots that are the earth, itself. That last teardrop will reunite a soul with the stars, when the man passes on to, once more, hold the softest hand. One stem to climb straight to Heaven, with nothing more to fall for, while that repeated question is no longer uttered as it will be answered with, “Neither. We were never apart.”
Modern Romanticism 