Luna

On Tuesday, January 11th, someone very important to me passed away. I only learned last night, and I haven't really stopped feeling that impact. There are so many people asking, making sure I'm okay, and I appreciate it. I tell them I am, because at the end of the day: I'm alive, I'm not going to harm myself or anything, and I don't want them to fret. I want them to take care of themselves, because that's what she would do. When things were darkest, and didn't have any sign of looking up for herself, she'd still be there to give you a comforting shoulder if you needed it.

I will be okay, but I am hurt, and I will be for a while. From the time, I obviously didn't sleep well. I want for there to be something, someone to blame, because loss like this does that to you. You want to find some sort of reason why someone who was the world, a pillar in not just your life, but the lives of so many around you, is just gone. This wasn't anyone's fault though. A burst appendix, and an infection that took the life of someone who deeply touched, and left a positive impact, on everyone she interacted with.

It sucks. It fucking sucks, and that's all there is that can be said. There's no villain of the story, no great obstacle to overcome, no bright side or hallmark brand inspirational shit... just a reminder of how quick and fragile this thing called life really is.

I've been told I did good. That I left a positive impact on her life with how often and highly she spoke about me and... god, it hurts. It hurts that now, she will never know just how much of the same she meant to me. How many messages I left in her inbox, just checking in because I missed her while she was gone that will never be seen, because I was sitting there thinking "She'll be back when she's better, and then we'll get the story and be there for her getting through it." But, we won't. That's not the world, not the outcome, we live in.

I've literally written this exact thing, I know it's not how life works, it's not a fairy tale, but god I wish it could be. That I could just turn back time, and try again, twist reality the way I do words for an outcome where I still have her. I'm just left with the fragments of what we made together. Art, a community, our fictional family, the memories we made together... there was time where I was at my lowest, my loneliness, and I reached out to her because I thought she might be the one to fill the hole in my heart. She was, just not in the way I wanted at that time.

I want it out, to let everyone know what a fantastic person I had in my life. I want to make art, to have her, and the things we made, live on in fiction where I can still have her. There's nothing she ever wanted more than to be in one of my stories, to be a part of what I do. I want to, but there's an aching pain that she will never see it. That it wasn't until she was gone that I could get over myself and my work to tell people how much she meant. Sister Luna has been on my table countless times, always one of the last of the squad I remove, because I loved the woman behind her inspiration. And I never got to express it to her how it was deserved.

The world is lesser, emptier, without her. I'm going to see that icon, that circle, and know the light behind it is gone, as I cling to every last shred of her that exists within me. In memoriam of Luna.

Luna the succubus. Luna the friend. Luna the Sister. Luna the mother. Luna the loved. Luna the lost, but never forgotten.