The Color of Red Lipstick

     You're gone. So very gone. You're far away and yet I can feel you linger. The missing presence that was once you. I can feel it in every aspect of my life, every fiber of my being. You are gone and, without a doubt, never to return. A hollow emptiness had claimed its home in my chest cavity when I first came to this realization. A life, my life, without you forever.

     Another sigh slyly sneaks past my lips. They say a part of your soul dies every time you sigh; if that is true then since you've left my soul should be warily thin. On this thought I sigh again before setting the coffee mug, I had been holding without noticing, down. Its stained on the rim, tinted with the remnants of your red lipstick. I pity the mug, it will never taste your lips again. A likeness of my own.

     My days have been blurring together, my legs move without my permission, my words flow automatically as my mind is consumed by you. Only you. I have decided, many times over, that you are the missing puzzle piece to my life which was once complete. Until one day, the puzzle was shattered and I had to put it back together, only to find just one piece was hidden. You are most certainly that piece. That single, lovely, missing piece.

     I'll have you know that your departure has also cost me a great deal of other things. Including my sanity. May I tell you about a conversation that I had just the other day with my psychiatrist? She told me out right that I was mad, that I was mentally ill, that you never existed. And what a laugh I had! Can you believe it? Saying that you, the love of my life, never existed! She told me you were a figment of my over creative imagination. That I created you as a way to fill a hole in my life and that you are gone because I may be getting better, making improvement.

     I have a confession, my love. I killed my psychiatrist. I took that beautiful stainless steel kitchen knife that you had always been so fond of and ran it across her throat. The nerve she had to tell me that you were a delusion. Some people are just truly sick. To play such a horrid joke on the broke and fragile. I loved you, I still love you, and for her to say you were nothing! It sent me into a dark rage. I couldn't control myself, love. You will forgive me won't you? I know you will. You would always forgive me.

     Some people, however, will be less forgiving. Her body will surely be discovered in the morning, I didn't try to hide it at all. But don't worry dear, I'll be with you when they come for me. You see, I have a forty-four caliber magnum revolver sitting on the coffee table in front of me, and I don't plan to miss my mark. I've always wondered what gun powder tastes like, or how it would feel to have the adrenaline pulsing at full speed through your viens right before you--


     I've found you.