Untitled #2

There is a photograph I keep in my wallet that is falling apart just like everything else. In the photograph you are stretched out on an American Eagle beach towel, propped up on your elbows looking out at an ocean made even bluer by the white sands surrounding us all the way to the shoreline. The sea wind is blowing your dirty blonde hair back and you have never looked more beautiful, without a stitch of makeup or worry. You are sipping on some kind of fruity tropical drink whose name I can’t remember. Behind you, our kids are building sand castles with huge smiles on their faces, their skin pink with the beginnings of a sunburn that even SPF 50 sunblock could not prevent. The water is crashing against the beach and overhead a lonely seagull flies silhouetted by pillow white clouds. Sometimes I see this trip in dreams and I smell the cool salty air and taste the sunblock that we sweated onto our lips before we kissed. And I wake up in what used to be our bed and you are gone and there is no children’s laughter filling up the house. There is just silence and the sound of my heart slowly dying.