Why must they end?

There you are, for just a few lingering moments. Vivid, real enough to convince me you’ve returned. And I reach out for you. Every time I try, no matter how far you are, I just want to reach you.

But the closer I get the more the cracks start to form, your face chips away like broken porcelain, and when my eyes open I know that I’m alone in the dark. Alone now, always so alone without you.

You never told me. You never showed me that you were dying. But I always knew. I felt it. There were so many times I tried, I tried to take that pain from you. To wrap the darkness that had it's grip on you around myself and fall back in to the center of the earth. I needed it, I longed to take it all from you. But you wouldn’t let me. You kept it inside, all to yourself. And it spread through you, festered and ate away at you until it finally consumed you.

I dreamt of blood the night you left us.

Seeping from the walls, dripping from the ceiling, spreading under the door. Long before I had opened my eyes, I knew. Before the phone calls, before the knock on my door, I knew. Everything felt different, like there was a piece missing from the puzzle, like the picture could never be complete again. There was a void now, an emptiness the shape of your beautiful soul.

The pictures, the memories, they will never be enough. They don’t let me feel your touch, they don’t let me hear your heart beating. The closest I will ever get to having you back are the dreams. They let me know that someplace in another time, or sometime in some other place, you're still here with me. So when I close my eyes, my friend, I always hope to see you, no matter how many tears fall when they open again.