Ghosts & Silhouettes

you can love someone so much, but you can never love people as much as you can miss them…

“Marshmallow gangster” was the great star-crossed love of my life. Ours was an epic love story, and I won’t be able to get more than a sentence into it without disappearing into a puddle of tears. I will not tell you our love story, because, like all real love stories, it will die with us. As it should. However, I can tell you about the first time we met.

The first time I ever laid my eyes on her, I knew without a doubt that she was everything I ever asked for. I’d hoped she’d one day eulogize me because there is no one I’d instead have grown old with and die next to.

We first met on a dimly lit street outside her apartment. The flickering street lamp was making me uneasy until I caught a glimpse of a small silhouette in my rearview mirror.

I was parked right outside her apartment block hoping I’d make a good impression. After months of conversation, this was it, I was a little nervous. It had been a while since someone made me feel like this. I vividly remember driving to her in my silver bullet 🚅, speeding through traffic, jamming to Drake.

I watched as she walked up to me with her eyes cast down and her head slightly tilted to one side as if she were listening to something only she could hear — a private moment that only we shared.” Hi,” she said shyly, “my name’s Monique.”

Monique was petite with dark hair and had the most beautiful brown eyes that spoke volumes about the kind of gentle soul she was. Her eyes were like pools; I could easily get lost in them. I was smitten.

She silently sat beside me wearing an infectious smile that made you want to smile too.”Nice to meet you,” I replied sincerely.”So what do you do?” Monique asked curiously as she closed the passenger door. I’ve always liked the quiet type: You never know if they’re dancing in a daydream or if they’re carrying the weight of the world.

In the end, although she left, something of her essence endures and can’t be destroyed. I have made peace with never being certain about what would have been, but “the not-knowing will not keep me from caring

I’ve always had a fascination with last words, they tell me a lot about who people were, and why they became the sort of people biographies get written about. Monique’s last words to me were ‘you fucked up…’,

Sometimes I regularly drive to our favorite spots listening to our Spotify playlist hoping to know more about the person she was but mainly hoping she’ll open my passenger door and I’ll turn around and we’ll stare at each other and she’ll wave at me and I’ll wave back. She will come and tell me that she was out of town and that had missed me more than anything else, that she wants to see the world with me and I’ll gladly say yes and we’d kiss and those around us will clap to newfound love. But I have to live with the vivid memories of her silhouette which still lingers.