gypsy love

she had sad eyes.

‘sad,’ perhaps, wasn’t the right word, for there was joy in them, too. longing and sadness and naïveté, combined with a wisdom well beyond her nineteen years.

she was beauty, light, freedom. her entire being fought against the cage of her body, for she was more star than human. galaxies shimmered on her skin and the cool glow of the moon lit her heart.

she didn’t talk much, but I often tried to imagine the sort of things she might say. every time her eyes lit up behind the shadow of her lashes, I longed to know what she was thinking.

she seemed to me to be lost in her own mind. I couldn’t begin to imagine the worlds she had created inside herself, the places she had explored and the things she felt.

I’m a whirlwind, she told me once. a storm trapped inside of this fragile body.

but she wasn’t. she was the wind whistling through the trees on a beautiful stormy night, she was the crashing waves of the ocean and the fresh smell of the rain.

she was all soul, as if she were a part of something more than this world. the entire universe was contained beneath her skin.

she was unreal.

no.

she was realer than real.

god had woven such complexities into ever attribute of her being – from the freckles like stars across her fair skin, to the small white moons in her fingernails. her collarbones reminded me of ships in the sea; her lips when they smiled of a curled red feather.

she could not be tamed.

and god, I never wanted her to be. for she was more wild than an eagle, more fierce than a panther. more pure than a dove.

and more beautiful than any woman I had ever met.

she sounds like the stuff of fairytales, I know. but she was real. she was more real than anyone I have ever met, or will ever meet again.

and for a short time, I held the entire universe in my rough, clumsy hands.

but a spirit like that cannot be held. her slender fingers dug into my chest, tore my heart from my ribcage and she fled, leaving me no choice but to follow.

come away with me, she sang, her hair glowing in the moonlight like nothing I’d ever seen.

and come away I did.

she pulled me from one side of the earth to the other; together we travelled across oceans and through galaxies. her hand pulling mine along, she showed me every inch of the world inside her mind. silver lakes and purple skies, oceans of velvet and tress so high you could never reach the tops of them. I saw galaxies dance, fish fly, birds swim.

her hands and words painted pictures in my mind I had never even dared to imagine, created worlds to be explored.

but I will never forget the day that the stars left her eyes and the day her lily-soft skin turned to paper and her moonlit heart began to fade. she had begun to burn up in the sun, and I was too enraputured by the magic of the moon to notice.

they told me she was sick, that any breath could be her last. and for the first time, I saw fear in her eyes and tremors shake her body. I watched degeat pass over her like a wave as she gripped my hand tightly, begging god for the chance to stay.

I clasped her to me tightly, though her whole body felt as if it might break in my hands. I could see that she was fighting hard to keep from crying. she fumbled in her pocket for a moment, then pulled out my heart, bleeding and raw. she extended her arms to me, as though she were asking me to take it back. but I just shook my head.

it’s yours, love. it will always be yours.

will you be alright? she asked me, and I couldn’t find the words to explain that from the beginning, I’d been hers. that every second lost in her eyes, exploring the wonders of her mind, gave my life purpose and I was afraid my heart might stop beating if she drew her last breath.

but she was from another world, that much had always been clear. she had always been too big for this world, too beautiful and too pure. and her spirit was trying the boundaries of her body, tearing her soul from her skin.

and maybe now she would finally be able to take her place in the heavens, she would finally be able to dance with the stars and sing with the planets. she had shown me the world, but out there… in the next world, there was even more to explore. she would thrive.

I stayed with her for hours, until she took her final breath.

heartbroken, finally allowing the tears to fall, I crossed to the window. my heart was still clasped in her frail hands, and I didn’t know how it was still beating. she was my everything. without her here, the entire world was grey and I felt as though a part of me had left with her.

I would see no more dancing galaxies or purple skies, no more oceans of velvet.

but I looked up through my tears and out at the moonlit night – it was fitting that should die in the night, my lady of the moon—and  I know that this sounds crazy but I swear to god it’s true. a light wind rustled through the trees, leaves shining under the light of the moon, and I saw a flash of lighting.

you know how they say lightning travels up from the ground, and not down from the sky? I can confirm it now, and as that bolt of energy shot through the sky I swear I saw a glowing shape rise up and settle in among the stars.