Kensal Green Cemetary

I got off the tube at Kensal Green station and walked over the busy road to the cemetery. If home is anywhere, it’s here with you Joseph, between the mausoleums and the graves.

Here in Kensal Green cemetery, where we worked and walked when it was all new and polished. When our love was still young, and we stole kisses (and sometimes more than kisses) in secret corners no one knew about but us.

You loved this place. That is what fascinated me about you from the first day we met at the stonemasonry - your love for the macabre. The eldritch parts of life drew us together as we chipped away at the stone, choosing the shapes our angels would take. If we could put a curl or a bit of beauty on a grave stone, we did. We made everything art! Who knows if it was to the glory of God or man or just for the satisfaction of knowing we wielded the hammer and chisel that brought stone to life? None of these sad straight lines of the modern era. We didn’t know how long we would last; these grave stones were the only way we could leave a little bit of ourselves in the world.

You couldn’t have known that I would still be here after some of our work had cracked, faded and broken nearly to dust. I couldn’t tell you that I knew I would still be here, long after your bones have become part of the earth again. Oh, my darling, I told you everything. Why couldn’t I tell you about the strange little cog in my system that decided to allow my face and body to stay the same while yours and everyone else’s withered and aged? We laughed when people mistook us for brothers, but we never corrected them. Why didn’t you ask, even when people started mistaking us for father and son? Then grandfather and grandson?

Oh, Joseph, I miss those days so very much. For the blink of time that we were together, everything had a soul.

Foolishly, I believed that included me.

My feet find their way to your resting place.

Joseph James Turner

Born on the 15th day of April 1818 - Fell asleep on the 10th day of May 1888.

The most loved man

My heart is for ever yours

In quiet moments, I shall remember

May God grant us an eternity where we meet again

I trace the very tips of my fingers so tenderly over your name, like it is made of velvet. The most beautiful name in the world. One day the wind and the rain will weather it away, so every day I touch it more gently, not to hasten its collapse. Even after a hundred and sixty years, I can’t bring myself not to touch this memory of you.

I place fresh lilies on your grave and light the new candle I got you. There are so many new things I wish I could share with you. You won’t believe what they can do with candles now, Joseph. This one smells like strawberries and cream. Like heaven, really. Do you remember the rancid, spluttering, fat dripping mess we called candles? These new people, their gravestones are ugly, but their candles are something to behold. My beloved, how can the candles I place on your grave get sweeter and more silent as the name on your beautiful gravestone becomes harder to read?

I blow out the candle, and give the wing of the stone angel on your gravestone a gentle pat.

Maybe tomorrow I will bring you a mango.