“I’ll kiss her,” I think, and then she’s already gone, scant decades later.
I’ve lost count of all the people I loved who swept into my life and warmed my heart for a short while before death’s pallid grasp drained everything from them and left me all alone again.
Well, “I’ve lost count” is what I tell people, but that’s a lie. I remember each and every one of the twenty-three people I’ve given my heart to.
Some days I lose myself in memories of them. Some of those days, admittedly, go on for a few years.
I need the time. I have more than a thousand years of memories to indulge, after all.
No shame left in me, anyway. Few people visit this run-down cottage surrounded by its garden of tombstones.
No reason not to dig when heartache overtakes me. No reason not to crawl down there and hold one of my wives one more time. No reason not to close my eyes, press my lips to her, and pretend.
I’ll kiss her. Even if she’s long gone now.