They told me grief was just love with no place to go.

The day the sky broke and you said goodbye, I held your hand to the end and I didn’t let go. Even when you whispered to me that you were ready, and you knew I was not. And you looked into my eyes and made me promise.

The days after turned to weeks, then months. The seasons changed, but the sky stayed broken—even when I could see the sun.

They were the lost times. Crawling in and out of bars, my only solace found at the bottom of the last shot glass before the last call, at the last wretched places on Earth that would tolerate my presence. I screamed, I raged and cried. I picked at the raw flesh on my bones. Then I stretched out my fingers and reached for the bottom. For nothing. And it reached back.

I was beyond the rescue of words and language, beyond the band-aid of hope. The emptiness of despair slowly twisted and became rage. Then rage became resentment and envy—resentment for the life I had lost with you, and envy of those I saw with that kind of light splashed across their hearts, when mine was crushed.

The photo of you was all that remained. You became the girl in the photograph. Forever young. Forever beautiful.

Then, from nowhere—you appeared. Silent in the corner of the room in the dead of night. Faceless and mute, but I knew it was you. The outline of your body, the shape of your hair, your smell. Although you didn’t answer me, you told me who you were without words. And I felt no fear.

Then, I understood.

A broken sky cannot be fixed. But I made new skies and learned to look at the broken one as still beautiful. And the promise I made, holding a hand I never let go of—until it went cold and let go of mine—was kept.

But you didn’t leave.

You said goodbye, but you didn’t leave.

At first, I thought you came to save me. From myself. But you came again and again. The years rolled on and the hair on my head grew thinner, and the skin on my face grew older. I lived again and loved, as you whispered to me that you wanted me to do, in another place and time.

Why did you keep coming? The shadow in the corner of the room that remains forever young and never speaks—even when I plead with you to tell me it’s really you? Are you watching when I lie to the ones I love, when they ask what I hide behind my eyes after you’ve been back again?

Are you angry, or are you just lost? Why can’t you let go? Why can’t you let me go?

Will we meet on the other side of the bridge, one day? Will I reach you? Will the skies above be full of rainbows, or will they not? Will you recognize me? Will you be the same?

I had to learn how to still love you without missing you, so I could let go. I had to learn that a broken sky can still be beautiful—for the time before it broke. Some never witness that kind of beauty at all.

My grief became love with a place to go. The embrace of whatever has a beginning surely has its end. An acceptance of what is—to let go of the hate of losing what never was—and gratitude that the sun splashed across my heart at all. Although cut short by God, it felt like it lasted for a thousand years. How blessed are those who experience such warmth?

There remains a dream of a golden bridge somewhere, some place. Until then, you remain forever close to my heart. You remain the girl in the photograph.

Forever young. Forever loved. Forever beautiful.

The bridge will look for me—I will not look for it. But I will look to meet you there.

I won’t say goodbye, and I won’t leave.

“And I’ve had so many rainbows in my clouds

I had a lot of clouds

But I have had so many rainbows

So many rainbows, so many rainbows”

Alien Hits/Alien Radio

Coldplay