Ulysses, My Dearest Ulysses,
I cannot tell you where I am, but I am far from you and that hurts to know. It hurts more than the biting pain of cold or the scorching burn of flame. It hurts as much as I have ever hurt to not know your body is whole and mind is content. I tremble, now, knowing you are unsafe. Like a quake that starts all at once and displaces and destroys, my shaking has left my heart in my throat and my happiness in shambles. Your death would uproot every joy I have laid down and would tear down every bit of peace I have built up. It would signify an end to the only love I have ever felt.
Your breath shall remain in your lungs and you will continue on, alive and well. There is nothing of this universe that can steal the blood from your veins or snap your bones in two. Ill will not come to you and your health will stay with you. Living suits you so well, Ulysses. Living is what you must keep doing. Cease that and you will sign my own death certificate.
No, I cannot live on without you. Why would I want to? Life is lifeless without you. Air is unbreathable. Songs sound like whispers I cannot hear. My feet feel anything but grounded even when walking. The gentlest breath pushes me over like a feather in the wind. Food does not satisfy my tongue no matter the taste. My brain does not think but feel heartache instead and my heart does not feel but thinks of pain instead. Nothing is right. Nothing is as it should be without you.
You will be at the forefront of my mind for now and always. I wish for you to stay there. I worry for you as much as I have ever worried, Ulysses Werner. I bury my heels in the ground and push against the tide of tears, but they rush from my aching emotions and out to touch the cold air and stream down my face. As if from an ocean, the streams turn into rivers and cascade down to touch the dress you gave me and seep into my lap.
My familiar is the only being I want to be around in this time of despair, but even she reminds me of you! Thinking back on the way she would over joyously fly into your arms makes me wish I could still do the same. Your painting of her with me is an image that is only shadowed by the photo-booth picture of the two of us that I keep with me, always. It seems everything is shadowed by what once was with you.
There is no limit to the pain that I feel for you, as there is no limit to the love I feel for you, either. Is there a limit to love? I know nothing about the subject except for what you teach me. What you have taught me. I will hold onto those things. I have a flightless imagination that is subject to being air born only when in the company of you, Ulysses. There is nothing I can do to rectify this. There is nothing I want to do, besides be by you again. Being with you, again, should not be the things my dreams are made of, but instead a reality we both live in. I want that, Ulysses. I want that or I want to breathe not. I want that or I want to stop the life in me, which will surely slow its flow without you alive.
Stay alive or I surely will not keep living. How could I without you, Ulysses? I beg for you to answer me. How can I live without you alive, as well? Is there any possible way? I beg of you to answer my questions and if all that is returned is dead air, then the universe shall soon be without me in it. I beg of you and I beg of all that exist and all that ever has and will exist to keep you safe, first and foremost.
I will love you deeply and forever,
Aashi
