in the end you could not even see me clearly, how my goodbye was please don't die on the street and please don't buy meth and jesus christ i love you so much i almost allowed you to kill me. 

i almost allowed you to kill me standing on the highest cliff i've ever seen in my life, one built of bricks made from the chemicals in your brain dried stiff in the late autumn sunshine, toxic sludge and retch turned terra cotta, scaffolded by the bones of the nightmares your ex gave you. i forgive you for everything. 

i forgive you for everything, even the way eighteen months later you are still all i can think about, my days still making a better world for you and only you, my nights still long dark hours pointed in your direction, you are my pole star. i am the black expanse. 

i am the black expanse and you are always the pattern, the legibility of light and fire and combustion, the inroads birthed across eons that led us to each other. you a comet and i the length of years it takes for visibility, you unwilling to wait and i who have only known waiting. 

i have only known waiting in the hospitals, inpatient facilities, sober houses, courtrooms, doctor's offices, the dark bars standing next to the stages months before waiting for your face and your voice to be illuminated and show me myself, the way i have loved you is forever, is whole. i wanted so much for you. in the end you could not even sense me. in the end your goodbye was only goodbye.