Not a Photo. I need you here.

Whenever she goes away, I breathe a little harder. My lungs have less air, my heart needs a little more blood. Whenever she goes away, I feel withered. 

It's not that she is the only reason I have for living, but she is a good reason to live. In the vanity of my humanity, she is placed like the breaking dawn of my days, and every time it comes to dusk, you'd understand why my heart sinks a bit lower.

When she is near, I am alive. Strong. Fearless. Wise. Hopeful. Confident. I am so many good adjectives when she is around. Small as I am, I become a giant when she is near me. Insignificant as I seem sometimes, I feel like a King when she sits with me.

Thoughts try to paint pictures of times past when she leaves, but they never remain still. I have failed to hold their focus steady. They are blurs. They change quickly, as though I were chasing them yet I am not. I wish they could present her to me and be. Still. But they can’t. I need an alternative.

Thankfully I have pictures of her. Whenever I look at her, I realise her beauty is a mathematical equation with a certain constant and different variables. Sometimes she looks angered; sometimes pensive or aloof, present, excited, weary, afraid, passionate, alive, yet because it is her, her beauty never diminishes.

I look at them whenever she goes away. Madonna worship. Trying to get the same sensation when she is near. Hoping maybe the still face shall by a miracle begin to move; to smile at me; to gaze back at me with slightly darting brown eyes. Even these pictures are not enough. Merely digital polaroid that presents a representation not the real thing.

I need her here. I need to hear the melody in her voice as she speaks; the song and child in her heart as she laughs; the resolve in her eyes when she stares. I need her here.

Madonnas won’t do. Cathedrals won’t help. Icons are useless. I do not need an order of service to rehearse her presence. I am past rosaries and novennas.  I need her here. I am not content with parables and commands, and rites and sacrifices to remind me of her.

You know what I mean, but do you know what I mean?

Peace and Christ love.