I still remember you my friend…

It was back in my younger years. Way back. We had met online, I couldn’t recall how or why…

I remember our first conversations over the phone. You had a deep, warm, soothing voice. You told me you were studying to be a doctor, that you were trying to get published as a poet, and everything about you seemed dreamy. I thought you were pulling my leg.

I went to meet you at the University’s residence. I couldn’t believe that it was all true… You were handsome, to say the least, witty, funny… You WERE studying to become a coronary surgeon, and you read some of your poetry to me…

I fell in love back then… A kind of love I never knew after you. We connected in a way that can not be explained. But you had given your life to medicine, like others give it to God, and we never were an official couple. You had short term girlfriends, I met some other men… But every time we bumped into eachother, the magic was there…

How many times did I rush to go meet you after a chat that had reminded us how we needed each other? It wasn’t just lust… It was interrupted love, I think. Living what we had on a daily basis would probably have killed us. It was too good, too intense. We couldn’t have concentrated on life again.

You were the first to tell me the 3 words every young woman craves… “Tu es belle.” It’s been over 15 years, but I still hear you. We were walking in Montréal, you had stolen a flower from the front yard of a random house, and put it in my hair…

You got published, many times… I was always there for you first reading to the public. I’d hide in the crowd, and leave without you knowing. I watched the young women all swoony around you, and I was sorry for them. They would never understand how you were. They wouldn’t process the fact that your heart couldn’t be possessed… That you were a wild animal not to be tamed.

We kept seeing each other from time to time, once or twice a year. Once, you called me on my birthday to tell me I was the woman of your life. You told me you’d take care of me, that you’d cherish me forever. You told me how eager you were to take me everywhere when you’d have international seminars…

How proud my mom would have been, uh? A doctor-son in law…  Knowing you, I asked you to think about it and call me again the next day, to tell me if you really wanted us to be a couple… You had realised it was impossible… You see, I loved you that much…

When you started your practice, you moved to my home town. Not the usual first pick for specialists like you. To the media, you said it was in part because it was the host of the International Poetry Festival, but I always had the feeling you needed to be close to me. I was secretly thankful. I needed your presence too.

We shared your bed, our thoughts and so much more a few more times…

And then one morning, my mother called me at work to tell me… You had taken your own life. It was on the news. You were gone.

I still cry every time I think about you. I have moved on, and in a way I wonder if you haven’t just set me free that day. Because I would never have been able to share another man’s life fully if you were still out there somewhere. You were a drug I couldn’t refuse, and I believe I was the same for you…

I’ll always beleive I have been the woman of your life… Not to flatter myself, but because I don’t believe any other of the women that loved you and were loved by you ever truly let you free like I did. And you can’t argue anyway…

So I guess that’s what it feels like to love until death do us part…