I’ve just heard that a friend of mine has died. I have no details, only that she passed away in her sleep. She was one of my oldest friendships, but she herself was not old. I thought we had more time. She was in my plans. Her death is like another door closing, slamming shut, becoming part of a past that is full of closed doors. For someone like me, someone who had to run a long way to find some kind of peace, there’s already so many shut doors. She was not going to be part of my past, she was going to be part of my future!

I wanted her to meet Rose, to meet my children, the babies we used to write about in letters to each other, as she chose – ambivalently – to not have children, and as I  grieved my own dreams of children due to sickness and ended relationships. She told me once she’d had a vision of me with a baby of my own in my arms. I wanted her to be here to see it happen! She was there through so much of the shit, our relationship suffered, we fought, there was distance and pain. We’d just started to reconnect, to let go, we’d just decided to make a new friendship.

I want to scream! There’s a howling rage in me. We suffered so much when the old world burned. I wanted her to know me now, in a place where my skin doesn’t burn anymore, where I’m not all teeth and shadows. I wanted to hug her again and tell her I loved her and never forgot her.

She’s not supposed to be dead.

I don’t want to be okay, I don’t want to move on, I don’t want to grieve, I want to burn the world down. This is not fair. This is wrong. We deserved better, we’d earned it. I’m screaming. I’ll scream as long as I need to.