Your brother's death must have hit you so hard.

It was a blow to the head and nothing more. His life, much more important than yours—as you said—should not have ended that way. It should not, but it did. I wish I had an answer for you back then even when I still do not have one now.

I found the record again. When you gave it to me, my memories told me of your advice. You requested me to listen to it when you are gone. Because God be damned, you are doing everything that night. You are running away to fulfill your dreams. You are reaching out to the stars and letting them burn you to ashes.

I was young and ignorant then. I loved you enough to stay blind to my misery reflected in your eyes and told you to go. Me, who could not even utter a single word to save myself—I did not stop you. Rather, I could not stop you. Because I loved you, no matter how much I deny it. Too much, in fact, for me to lose us in translation, to place us on the wrong track, the wrong path, the wrong pitch; and time had not been kind enough to let us get back on the right thread.

Memories are sad, little bitches, but they are the only things I have left of you. The things you did, the words you uttered and the nonsense you cherished, even the thoughts you never spoke out loud because you were afraid they would devour you—they live on.

The only thing they know how to do is to live on.

The record is another memory—of the songs we listened from one ear to the next as we walked in the shadows of the neighborhood, of little pieces that made me and have now made you. What went through your mind when you listened to these memories one last time, when you entrusted them to me because you did not have anyone else who loved you more than you loved yourself?

I wonder—can we go back to the beginning, when we were both strangers searching for light? Time would never let us, but I dare wonder. I dare. Now that you are not here to stop me, I let your melody float in the air of my squalid room, and I know. I know that what follows all the songs sung by voices from distant lands with distant feelings that were not our own is something I recognized.

Time will never let us go back, but memories will. They bring me back to the darkness of the fire escape, outlaws against the cloak of night, prisoners of the dented landing and of something far more inescapable. I remember the words which once lay on a crumpled page, judged before it could speak for itself. I remember the words which have once fallen out of my mouth when you pushed me farther away from the shore.

Now, my words—my stupid, ignorant, and youthful words screaming of hope and ideals—they fall from yours.

Across time. Across a place you have gone to but can never return from. You sang, and you never will again. You have taken my wishes and made it your own, only to have ripped it to shreds at the last second. And you were right—your words speak ill of you. Because you sang:

We'll live forever
As you promised we would
We will live—we said we could
Let's force the world to untether
And let's live—as long as there's forever.