Revisited and edited something I wrote about loving someone in active addiction. Sharing here because I think some of you may understand the impossible place between love, fear, hope, and letting go.
I Love Someone Who Is Dying
I love someone who is dying.
I love you.
Maybe that is the whole story.
Maybe it always was.
I just didn’t know it yet
on that beach in Cabo.
Our beach.
The place we kept returning to
when we needed the world
to feel possible again.
I had always wanted
to see a whale.
I used to joke
that if one ever came,
I would be so happy
I might propose.
I had not even told you
I loved you yet.
I was afraid to say it.
And then one came.
So close to shore
I could see the barnacles
on its body.
So close
you could hear the crash
before you understood
what you were seeing.
You jumped into my arms
and looked at me,
and that was it.
That was the moment
I knew
I was going to marry you.
I did not know
what was coming.
I thought love
was a kind of shelter.
I thought if I loved you hard enough,
I could stand between you
and whatever was coming.
I did not know yet
that love can be true
and still not be enough.
We had a beautiful life,
or at least
the shape of one.
A home people admired.
Animals sleeping at our feet.
Mornings where the light came in
and for a few minutes
nothing was wrong.
We flew across oceans.
Slept in rooms
most people only see
in magazines.
Sat at tables
where everything was perfect
except us.
I kept thinking
if I could make life
beautiful enough,
maybe it would finally feel safe
inside your body.
But beauty was never enough.
Not the house.
Not the ocean.
Not the rooms.
Not me.
And then something would shift.
Not always loudly.
Not at first.
A glass.
A look.
A sentence
landing wrong.
I learned to see it
in your eyes
before the night broke open.
Your face would still be yours
and suddenly not yours.
And I would know.
The night was going somewhere
I could not follow.
Some nights ended
with metal bent around silence.
Some mornings began
with pieces of the story missing.
There were calls
I was afraid to answer.
There were doors
I was afraid to open.
There were truths
I learned too late
and tried to survive anyway.
And sometimes,
after all of it,
after the fear,
after the wreckage,
after the room became impossible
to stand in,
you would look at me
like I had done this to you.
Like my love
was the thing hurting you.
Like my fear
was the problem.
And then morning would come.
Or something like morning.
You would be soft again.
You would laugh.
You would touch my arm
like nothing had happened.
And there she was.
The woman from the beach.
The one I had spent all night
trying not to lose.
Our life became
moments I lived for
inside a life
I was afraid to live.
Because you were still here.
That was the cruelest part.
You would return
just enough
to make me hope
I had been wrong.
You would laugh sometimes,
and for one second
I would think
maybe death
had changed its mind.
Maybe this time
I got to keep you.
But it always came back.
Not all at once.
Not mercifully.
In glasses.
In bottles.
In slurred words.
In ruined nights.
In beautiful places
turned into something
I had to survive.
I love someone who is dying.
I love you,
and it is the kind of death
that keeps me awake
with my finger under your nose
just to make sure
you are still breathing.
Still breathing.
Still breathing.
Still breathing.
As if staying awake
could stop what was happening.
As if keeping watch
could make love count
for something.
But it did not stop.
It lives in my body now.
In the adrenaline
that floods me
when I do not know where you are,
or what shape you are in,
or whether the phone in my hand
is about to become
the worst thing
that has ever happened to me.
And when there is nothing to do,
which is most of the time,
I stand there
loving you
with nowhere
for the love to go.
That is the loneliest feeling
I have ever known.
Because you have not disappeared.
That would almost be easier.
No.
You come back in flashes.
In your laugh.
In your softness.
In the way you look at me
when the darkness loosens
for one second
and I can see you.
The woman from the beach.
The one who jumped into my arms
after the whale came.
The one who made
the whole world
feel possible.
And that is what breaks me.
Not that you are gone.
That you return.
Just enough
for me to remember
exactly who
I am losing.