The Secret Is Revealed Upon Death

Control it. Keep your cool. Breathe. Suppress. Wipe that tear away, you weakling. You disgust me. 

A mantra I wish I didn't have to repeat. A heaviness I wish I didn't have to carry. 

It hits me the hardest in that semi-conscious zone between sleep and wakefulness. It grabs me at my mind's most vulnerable; before it completely leaves the comforting caress of my self-deceptive dreams, and before it fully arrives at the 'clear-headed region' of rational thought. As I lie in the hazy dimness of twilight, I'm gripped by the panic of the inevitable. I shiver at the thought of waking up one morning entirely alone. I stare at the spent, dark blurs of the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling, the very ones we used to gaze at on the first day we met. 

I walk alone in the dead of the night, walked by your building. Unknowingly, I turn my head and looked at your window. Were you asleep? Were you awake as I am, troubled as I am, grief-stricken as I am? I feel it bubbling beneath the surface, sobs strangled as I force it down. I feel the agony of having you so close, yet seemingly miles away. My feet do not slow down as I continue my listless meander. I know that if I stopped now, my feet would never have the energy to go on. My arms are crossed, as if bracing myself from a chill, but the only chill I feel comes from a place too deep to hide from.

The secret is revealed upon death. 

The thirteenth card in the tarot, Death, suggests that with every ending comes new beginnings, with every death comes birth, with every finality comes ignition. The afterlife presents itself only to those who have faced it, and until then, all we can do is speculate. Two months used to sound like such a long time, and now the end is within days away. Two days. The mere thought of being alone in my empty Madison apartment is enough to paralyze me. Death reveals the answers, they tell me. I seriously doubt it, but would actually seeing the other side be better than waiting around to find out?

A part of me will die, yes. 

But I won't stay down.