a storm wrecked my ship, gave me debris in exchange for a life, mildew in place of a body. i do not know where you are now. i am standing on the driftwood, wishing i had been destroyed along with you. i am more whole than i have ever been.
this is how i learn about greed: when your world is something you have touched, anchors and bones, a fleeting, flickering thing, you have not truly possessed it. i remember the crack of thunder, the hurricane forming a canyon in my head. i wonder if i heard it at all. the destruction, the aftermath. you, gone. and that moment between—when your hand slipped, before you hit the ground, a purgatory that belongs to you. i would like to go there. then perhaps i can still feel the body of your ghost in my arms.
loss did not break me; you did. loss is having known you at all. what i have been left with is grief, the skeleton of your laughter.