I feel trapped in these spaces where there are only blank faces and no distractions to save me from melancholic temporal memory. I have been saving these people and all of these places, the ones that make up the strangest parts of me. There are tall buildings and subway ride conversations mixed with late night drives and being in love with everything and everyone I see. There is some distant remembrance of attachment beyond the periphery and feeling too much to settle or sleep soundly. Some disjointed semblance of a person that I wanted to be.

You will be lucky, they told us in class, if you get to take care of someone who is dying - to take care of someone after they have died. I wonder still at the choice of words.

Watching some unknown person pass away stirs a soul in a subtle way, at first. I felt surprised at my inability to emotionally connect to a body as it ceases to function in all of the important ways. Rather clinical of me to wonder at pulse rates just now, I remember thinking, but the morphine and sporadic deep breaths left me curious. I sat with her a long while and looked into her eyes as often as possible. I do think I have never felt anything so cold and stiff as departing hands. She seemed so removed from the physical, really, as if her entire being had pooled in her eyes. It is difficult to tell someone it will be okay when you don't believe it yourself. Feeling wholly removed from any religious theory leaves one floundering for a meaningful sort of comfort. Still, how can eyes be so alive when the body is so close to death.

Hours passed before anyone would slip into the room again. I left then, replaced by someone else to hold her hands. She left two hours later and I can only believe that there is a somewhere else. Somewhere I can't understand but want to assume exists because there was far too much life left inside of her. Too much of a person trapped inside a mostly useless skeleton, failing flesh and blood.

Nearly a week later before I sit and truly think about the sadness that has crept into me since. And now I will keep her there, inside of my head, with the tall buildings and being in love.