princess

i wrote this in notepad a week ago, they played the rest of the tapes tonight. i didn't see anything i hadn't seen before, i just watched to see her, hear her again. she was ... something to me, i cannot explain.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

her name mentioned anywhere in my periphery catches my attention. i struggle to ignore the television, yet i knew the tapes would be played tonight. i can resist most tabloid style shocking new development in history type things, but tapes? her voice?

i laid at the foot of the bed, close enough to the tv not to need glasses. i clutched my bottle of newcastle and i fell into her world, so familiar. i know the story, as well or better than i know my own. i did not listen for revelations, i only wanted to hear the things i know spoken in her voice.

and i cried, first at the wedding images and then off and on for the rest of the hour. six and a half years after her death, i cry at the memory of a woman i never met, whose life played out in a world so different from the one i inhabit, yet the recognition was instantaneous. i have been following her shadow from behind the harsh lights, since the first breathless headlines.

i can tell you that these tears are pleasure, an indulgence. and that they cleanse me in ways my own cannot. in fact i enjoy every thing i have felt during this following, the feelings i am feeling now are exquisite bittersweet and perfect. i will even tell you i love her, even though in the typing of that admission, i can feel every ounce of rational matter in me anywhere, protesting vigorously, but with complete and utter futility.

love. love is the word.