Angel

"Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful?

Will you still love me when I've got nothing left but my aching soul?"

I found you when I was lost. You were the first one to reach a hand to the wounded me, the first one to ever smile a real smile. And all I saw was light and the sparkling eyes of what I thought it was one of God's angels. But you were more real than my pain, your touch gaving me more sensations than the arrow holes in my back.

I found you - or maybe you came looking for me, knowing that I was in need of you?

And then life played tricks on us... all the deceiving calls, the lies and fights, the way we'd spend days, weeks without talking to each other. The way we would date others and always find a way to make each other jealous over the new 'acquisitions'. And the perfect way we'd always return to each other because we know that we could find comfort only when we'd find the other's arms.

Then that summer day with the sun shining brighter than in any other day. The way you got on your knee while I was hanging our clothes on the string behind the house. The way I wrapped my arms around your neck, choking with thin air and unable to speak, I still nodded, I still let you know my answer, my promise for the next half of life.

And then autumns and winters, springs and summers, day and night, seconds and minutes or having you next to me. It made me wonder if it wasn't all a stupid, childish dream, if maybe I was dying and you were truly and angel sent by God. But either way, you were mine.

And look at us now - the wrinkles we grew together, the books we both read, the teas we drank, the stupid tears we spilled over unborn babies or melodramatic theater performances. We're old, my dear. 

And every day, I watch you slip away in a time I cannot follow you. You're like a time traveler, going back and forth between now and then.

"One day, dear God, give me one day only to talk to the real him," I prayed night by night after closing the door to the room you refused me. "Give me just a day with him and nothing more than that. I beg of you..."

That's how I would pray. Day by day, night by night, always waking up with the strong belief that the man in the next room will recognize me and will stop asking for the younger version of me. And day by day, he would fall deeper into that trance, forgetting bit by bit everything about my existence.

Until one day the eyes sparkled in the dull present where I had to watch him fall in love with another while I, his wife, the love of his life, had no room at all. I was the third wheel. Unwanted...

And putting his hand over mine, our wedding rings shone into the sun light. And his smile - the more beautiful thing I was ever given to see. Bright like a day and warm like the biggest fire that was ever lit.

"Will you still love me when I've got nothing else left than my aching soul?" He asked, remembering perhaps the fear I lived with until I gathered my courage to ask him if he'd still love me once I get wrinkles and get smelly.

"You're an angel - my angel. You saved me when even God wasn't paying any attention to me. You lift me up from the dirt and made me a woman, a best friend, a lover and a wife. You are my husband, the love of my life. I'll always love you," I would answer too scared to even breathe in front of his sad eyes.

"The leave. Leave me be and go live your few left years away from me. 'Cause I only stain the memory of us, the love we shared. Leave me, dear."

An angel dies away from home, away from familiar arms.

An angel remains an angel even in death. Even in Alzheimer...

"I know you will, I know that, I know.

Our summer days, our electric souls... we're old now, dear."