The One You Love Most

If you wish to wake from the reverie, if you want to count your blessings or need a kick
in the myocardium, think about losing the one you love most. You’re in a ’94 Firebird
traveling east at seventy-two miles per hour and you’re contemplating what it must feel
like for the phoenix to rise from the ashes. You glance over to the one you love most and
that song is on the radio—the one to which you first danced together. You’re both too
blindsided by an abundance of endearment to see the semi-truck slipping from its lane, its
driver asleep at the wheel. You’re in a hospital, and there is no hope for the one you love
most. You are hot with rage because today you opted not to be in the driver’s seat. Or
maybe the one you love most has come down with a sickness so swift not even the
doctors can slow the inevitable. It happens these days, even still, a death so quick. You
may, one day soon—tomorrow, perhaps—wake to a near-vacant bed, cursing the world
or God or yourself for allowing such an unquenchable pain to exist. In the same breath,
you may also feel an immeasurable warmth remnant of the phoenix fire, of the one you
loved most, and you will know—you will sing through tears—of the once-in-a-lifetime
rarity which exists suddenly only in memory. And this moment—the one in which you’re
currently holding your breath—will be but a spark before the blaze.

 

 

Nathan Elias is the author of the chapbooks A Myriad of Roads That Lead to Here: A Novelette and Glass City Blues: Poems. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles, and he has served as editor on the literary journal Lunch Ticket. His work has appeared in Entropy, PANK, Hobart, and other publications. His films and screenplays have been widely selected, and his short film The Chest premiered at Cannes Court Métrage. Nathan has taught a variety of creative writing classes in Los Angeles and the Tampa Bay area. Find him at www.Nathan-Elias.com and @_NathanElias.