dogwood drought

Futari

          I want to watch you rot before me. I want your skin to crack open like an overripe peach, red flesh turning black with decay. Your eyes will glaze and grey. I’d let it happen slowly, no half-hearted attempts at revival or preservation, just natural melding back to earth. I could keep you if I wanted to, I know the way to do it now, but there is something far more beautiful in your body’s transience. To know that I was the one to see your true final moments, not just your breath leaving your lungs, but to see you return to dirt. What an honor! And who else to do it but me? Who other than the person who hated and loved and thought of you the most would treat you with the reverence and humanly scorn that you deserve? 
          Even as a corpse you’d be breathtaking. No, not even, especially. I wouldn’t close your eyes or fold your arms across your chest, I would leave you where you fell, just like it’s meant to be. And I’d wait with you--you know I would. I wouldn’t leave for a moment, not if you didn’t want me to. I’d hold my breath and never blink, just to have one more second to see you as you are and imagine how you might be. I think I might get flowers too. Red ones or maybe...white? Whatever symbolizes rebirth, purity, I’ll lay them before you, around you. Not roses, but pale spider lilies and deep chrysanthemum. I’m sure you’ll bloat and ooze and carry with you the stench of death, and I will wait beside you with certainty and loyalty until the moment you are Nothing and even the flowers all have gone. 

          If I can’t have you in life then I will at least have your death and there is no god or man that will stop me because I know myself to be pure. I want only for you to not be alone. Even if against your wishes, I want you to die with someone who knows. I want you to be understood, and if the only one to do it will be me, then I humbly and gratefully accept my fate and only pray that you will not think of me too harshly.