I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her. My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before. Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is short, and oblivion so long.

~ from "Saddest Poem" by Pablo Neruda

The word duende was used by Federico Garcia Lorca to describe the peculiar kind of poetry written by poets such as himself and Pablo Neruda. That school of writing is characterized by a fiery Spanish romanticism... but with an undercurrent of darkness and desperation. 

Duende is an elusive concept, but roughly translated, it means "the awareness of death." Lorca believed that in order for art to be great, it has to convey a constant awareness of death-- the knowledge that every act and every thought is, to some extent, finite. 

Last night, I crawled into bed and wrapped my arms around Matt. I love snuggling up to him when he's asleep. He's so warm and soft and vulnerable. I can maneuver myself into his arms and listen to his heart beating.

I love doing this, but in a way, I hate it, too. Because here is what crosses my mind at those times:

First, I think about the two years I will be spending without him when I move away. I remember that a time of separation is almost upon us. I must push away the slightest possibility that the separation will be permanent. It's bad enough to imagine the end coming in 50 years. I can't even condone the thought that we will break up, or that our relationship won't pass this test.

As I said, it's bad enough the way it is. It's three in the morning and the future is laid out, etherized, in front of me. Saying goodbye. Sleeping alone again, with my giant teddy bear that doesn't satisfy my need for flesh on flesh, or my need for his soft breathing in the night. Living without the security of having someone there: someone I am always aware of. Someone that is aware of me. 

I count the nights that we still have together until I go away... which are not many. I bury my face in his soft body and breathe in his particular scent.  

This leads inevitably to another thought, and it can best be described as duende. I cling to him with a lump in my throat. I think how cruel life is, that it ends inevitably in death. 

Every separation is a little death. Every night spent apart is a harbinger of that end. I'm choosing to go away, we chose it together, and it's still hard. I can imagine how much harder it is when you want to stay, but you can't. When your own body betrays you. When you're going so far away that you don't exist anymore. When you're ripped from the one you love by the most vulgar sort of reality.

I hope for, rather than believe in, an eternal togetherness. I guess I hope for it just to stave off despair. So I try to stay awake, and savor the feeling of cuddling up to him in the night. Whether I do it a dozen times, or a hundred times, or a thousand times more, it's a finite act.  And I know it.

Perhaps that is what makes it so precious, the duende of those moments. But it's painful to make any concession to death... even for the sake of poetry.

They can't afford to get married at anywhere but the Elvis Presley Drive Thru Chapel o' Love.