I'm losing her.
Note: this is a standalone post, but it's also a response to this piece I wrote last month, back when I was the woman I would later kill.
The brilliant woman from the mountains, the savage and wild woman, the woman I love, she is dying.
She collapses on the sidewalk while I'm at brunch. I leap up, cursing as I spill my mimosa, and I run to her as fast as I can in this fitted white minidress (today's brunch theme is 'white hot').
I kneel over her, pushing her tangled hair out of the way, noting the red dirt on her shins and the pine needles in her boots. Even on the edge of death, her bare face is glowing. 'Lucky bitch,' I mutter.
She takes my hand and pulls me close with the last of her strength.
"Wake up! Please!!! You must wake up!!" The woman I love screams in a voice so weak it's barely a whisper. Her hand falls to the ground.
I look at my outstretched palm to see she's left in it a metal pin with a howling coyote on it, the rising moon in the background. "A part, but not apart," it says. The breeze changes and I swear I can smell sage and creosote and juniper.
Her eyes grow dim as her world goes dark forever. The woman I love is gone.
Tears fall down my face, "My darling! My life, my light, my– fuck! My makeup!"