Excuse me, some questions.

I miss you so much.

My imagination hurts, aches, til I can't breathe it anymore.

How can you know love, recognize love, if you've never felt it before?

If you've never seen it, heard it?

If your parents were amateurs?

How can you know it, when it walks you around town until the wee hours?

How are you suppose to know to kiss something, someone so gentle, so unassuming, so hidden in their desire?

Is it my fault?

Will I be punished until I die, with a broken heart?

I miss you so much.

And to think that Praha seemed so far before.

Nothing is farther than death.

Nothing.

Not East Timor.

Not Burundi.

Or the Basque.

Nothing is so final as

"he did not survive the collision".

nothing.

I haven't finished grieving you.

It's been years.

I've wasted so many precious smiles.

So many sunny Sundays.

So many ice creams and tunnels.

And aimless walks.

I though there would be different signs,

like in the movies.

Music or a change in the lighting or something.

Something.

Something more...romantic, obvious.

Telling.

But it was just delight.

De-lightful.

Delightful like a smooth curl of your hair around my finger.

Delightful.

LIke chocolate ice cream after it melts enough not to hurt your temples.

The warmth of your hand under the table and the taste of maple syrup on your finger.

Delightful like skipping after the age of appropriateness.

And falling behind the others. Always. Getting lost in each other and the adventure, not noticing until we came upon them again.

I'm crying now.

And though it hurts, perhaps not so much.

Perhaps not so much that I think it will kill me 

(although then I would be closer to you)

Perhaps this is a sign that I'm healing.  That I'm far enough from the shore where we left you that I can't see you waving mournfully anymore.  Wishing we didn't have to leave you behind. 

In time.

Perhaps now, you've lifted off from that spot and fly, freely, where you will.  Is this why you can visit me in dreams, when I cry for you in the orange afternoons?

You always come.

(Will you come tonight?)

Is this why I can cry without dying for you?

Perhaps there's hope then that the memory could become just that;

Memory. 

A memory without the wrenching ache.  Something that only happens in my mind, not in my heart, so much anyways. Something that makes me smile.

I love you Petr.

So much.

I think I may never have loved anyone before.

Never like I love you.

Enough to let you be as you were, are, were.

So

What are the good things?

That I can love that much.

Number one.

Number two.

That a human like you existed.

Number 3,

that a human like you existed and I knew you.

Even if it was only for 23 days.

But I suppose I'll know you forever, 'til the end of your life.

And love you forever.

And when I die, promise me ice cream.

Warm chocolate ice cream.