Tears echoed discomfort.

Pain never exceeding but getting more and more unbearable as hours went by.

Hope no longer hindering on a moment.

Her skin losing its color.

Losing its life.

Warm turns to cold.

Hands trembling acknowledging truth.

That night she faded.

She passed and took a part of me with her.

And I remember Shakespeare's quote about love never altering but bearing through it all, even at the edge of doom.

How true are these words today?

as these cold hands continue to shake.

as my thoughts continue to howl her name.

I was with her when she loss the hope to love.

She felt like she didn't deserve to be loved because of her past actions.

I thought otherwise.

I knew the pain she tried so desperately to conceal from the world.

That pain came from the yearning to be loved.

To be accepted.

But…

she already was.

She never knew.

Her last words were stay with me.

And I did.

And I always will.

Always.

Siempre.

I knew pain.

I knew tears.

But never did I know what she hidden from me.

She was slowly dieing of AIDS and I couldn't bear to think of it at the time but now…

I can think clearly without crying.

I can think without cringing at the fact of her disease festering within her was brought upon by her own doing.

Although I said goodbye before I want to say it again.

This time without having the pain of watching her go.

Goodbye.