Journal: In The Aftermath Of You

September 8, 2025

 

“Tonight was beautiful and so are you”.  It was cheesy and if anyone else said it I would’ve been grossed right out.  I didn’t know as I hung up the phone that night it would be the last time we ever spoke.  I didn’t know then the way I would cling to how your drunken voice sounded when you spoke those seven words.  The way I would regret saying goodnight when you begged me to stay on the line.

It wouldn’t be until September 24, 2024 that my worst fears would be confirmed.  Until then, for the next sixteen days I would continue our daily countdown to the day we would run into each other’s arms again, leaving space for you.  Anxiously anticipating your next text or call, living out every possible scenario and hoping for the best outcome, dreading the absolute worst that turned out to be reality.

 

Nineteen and wide-eyed in a foreign city, I walked into the lobby confused and soaked from the rain.  You were supposed to just be a side character –the kind stranger who helped two young girls figure out which hotel they were staying in– the image of you wasn’t supposed to linger on the backs of my eyelids and become ingrained in my mind the way it has been since that fateful summer afternoon.

But I’ve learned you can’t argue with what is meant to happen to you, it will happen no matter what you do to prevent it, that one choice you made five months ago changed your life and you didn’t even think twice about it at the time, you didn’t know until now that it would change the trajectory of your life forever.

So I couldn’t argue with the way my eyes insisted they knew you in a past life, the way that my soul recognized yours.  I just had to go with it.  Just like no amount of moral judgement or peers’ opinions could really change your mind.

 

We filled the summer with date nights on our Sunday’s off and phone calls on the train home from work, and counting down every day until the next time we would see each other for real.  You gave me shit for saying my dreams were unrealistic.  You told me to not give up on them because we would make it happen. But as we daydreamed and planned our future, for the first time in my life I didn’t care –whether my dreams came true or not, as long as I got to see the world with you I knew I’d be happy.  I just wanted to know you and continue to know you.  For the first time I wasn’t scared of getting older or not having a plan, I was excited for the future because the future meant one day closer to the next time I’d see you; the future was whatever life made happen, but the point is that it was happening with you.

 

You offered me your magically optimistic perspective: the wild way in which you lived your life on your own terms without it harming others; the way you found the good in every possible scenario; the way you validated every emotion or feeling despite the way it compared to what you’d been through.

I wish I could be as good as you were. Maybe one day I still can be, but I haven’t been the same person since September 24, 2024 –really I haven’t been the same since September 8, but at least then I still had hope.

 

Your city didn’t feel foreign anymore, it was lit up with magic –the same stuff that brought us together.  I knew my way well.  I walked into the hotel lobby hoping you were an asshole, that you had ghosted me, decided you didn’t want me anymore, then I could just get angry at you and move on.  If only things had been so simple.  I walked into the hotel lobby and knew by the look on your colleagues face when I asked about you that it was the worst and it was.  You had passed away a couple weeks ago and no one knew why or how at this point in time, I still don’t and I’m not sure I want to.

 

I didn’t eat or sleep for a week.  I eventually went back to work and school, but life felt stagnant.  It’s strange how fast fate can twist, all that hope and magic gone.  I don’t remember time passing, but apparently it has and this all occurred a year ago starting today, September 8.

I don’t think you’d like the person I’ve been without you here.  She tries her hardest to see the world the way that you did, but how can I find the good in a world that took you away so soon?

and so I am a ghost; eternally alone. For how could I learn to love someone new in the aftermath of you?

I attended the funeral.  I saw the ashes. And still I pretend you’re out there. It makes it easier to think you’re still walking the streets helping the less fortunate, upselling foolish girls on fancy bottles of wine, dreaming up a better life for us two, but it’s only me standing here in the aftermath of you.

You weave your way into every poem, every song, every dream and every thought and so the lights of your city call me like no other.  I scan the streets, the windows and train for your silhouette; for your face

Through the hum of cars and busy chatter I listen for your voice –empty-handed in the silence, I try to accept that you’re really gone.

I had you in my hands and now you’re out of reach.  We used to sleep under the same moon,

but now I lay here with your ghost; eternally alone. For how will I ever escape the blue

 

in the aftermath of you.

 

 

– Love Kayla