It’s harder to write an ending than it is to write a beginning. At the beginning, you’re just making stuff up. You’re just writing stuff down when it comes to your head and there’s no need to cut or edit or check for continuity errors because there is no continuity. Your fingers pound on the keyboard like a pianist, smashing words out of your broken teeth until you have a beginning.
I have no doubt that the world began this way. God is a pianist, and we are the keys. Sour notes lead to beautiful melodies, and beautiful chords get crushed under the weight of his bleeding fingers. The Universe is a mad sprawl, a horribly long symphony that no one wants to sit around and wait for the end of. Everyone leaves before the end, and they don’t get to see the crescendo.
To me, you are the crescendo. The payoff at the end of the long wait. I’m not writing this for any other reason than to tell you that I think you’re beautiful, and I know that’s a very convoluted way of getting around to it but I think that’s part of my charm. One day I hope you can hold this up and tell everyone that your girlfriend wrote this, but maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll keep it locked up somewhere and you’ll only read it in the glow of twilight while I’m asleep in the other room. Maybe you’ll never read it.
Sitting across from you in this hospital bed is all I could ever ask for. I can’t speak and you can barely move, but do we really need any of those things to show our affection? I know you love me. You’ve written it down with your shaky hand before, and I’ve felt you slowly meander over to my bed and kiss me in the middle of the night when you think I’m sleeping.
Remember your life before all of this? Do you? I don’t. It seemed to pass by in a dull haze. I don’t miss it. A lot of the other patients here seem to think that this is the end of us. That we’ll just die in here and we won’t make it out. To me, that’s comforting. I can’t yell to say that I want to stay with you, you know? I don’t think anyone even knows we’re together, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to separate us one of these days.
But, with all my heart, I hope they don’t. You bring so much joy into my life, when all it used to be was pills and medicine and shots and surgeries. That stuff is still involved, which blows, but now I have you as well. So that makes it a lot better. I know that if I leave to go get my blood drawn or I go under for a bit because of the medication I’m on, I’ll still wake up to see you there.
That’s all I ever ask for. To have you there. I don’t need packets of letters that you shove under my mattress late at night. I don’t want you getting up and trying to kiss me and then slipping to fall on the floor. I want you to stay as close as you can without getting hurt. That’s all I ask for, love. I know this is the first letter I’ve ever written to you and it will probably be the last because my hand is shaking after all this movement and I think the nurse would send me out if she knew that I was staying up late to write you letters late at night.
But I can promise you that we’ll make it out of this. Even though I don’t really care if we ever do, I know that you do. You talk about it in your letters all the time. You want to leave, to go, to take me someplace and make me walk around so much that I fall asleep in your arms. I promise you that will happen. If I have to rip out the IV cords myself, we will go wherever you want to go. Paris. Portugal. Tokyo. Australia. Wherever. You could take me to the moon if you wanted. As long as I’m with you, I’m happy.
Happy birthday, love. I’m sorry we have to spend it here, but at least to spend it with each other.
