We lay in the long green lawn under the dizzying height of the Eiffel Tower, listening to the chatter of a dozen languages, watching lovers take selfies.

We made love, endlessly. I required a lot of chemical help, now, but she didn’t need to know that. All she needed to know was that I loved her, that I worshiped her body, that I treasured her.

I barely sleep anymore. It’s like my mind, now that the end grows near, refuses to let miss even a few hours of life.

I watch her sleep.

I write poems to her, about her, for her.

I write vignettes, remembering our life together. That time we tried to adopt a dog from a shelter, and it turned out to be a wild monster of destruction, sweet and hysterical but obsessed with eating couches and shoes and counters and cabinets and even, when locked in the garage, my lawnmower. It ate my fucking lawnmower. The final straw for it was when it ate Nadia’s Michael Kors purse—literally ate it, devoured every last scrap of expensive leather.

There are a thousand stories, and I lie awake and try to remember them all, write them all. What I’ll do with the collection, I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Maybe it’s just for me.

She wakes up, sees me in the bed next to her, my laptop on my thighs, the screen glow lighting my face. Snuggles closer. Kisses my shoulder.

It’s taking more and more drugs to act normal.

We have a week left. I feel my body shutting down. I feel things beginning to fail.

I’m not ready, goddammit.

I mean, in terms of “wrapping up my affairs” I’m as ready as I can be. It’s all arranged, everything is taken care of. She won’t have to do a thing, after I’m gone.

Sometimes, when I do manage to catch a little sleep, I wake up and see that she’s watching me.

Once, after a long night of sex and wine and French TV, I fell asleep on the couch and I woke up curled on her lap like a cat, and she was stroking my hair, what’s left of it, and she was crying.

She knows.

But when we’re awake, we pretend this is just a vacation.

It’s what I need, and she knows it. She needs it too, but I’m not sure she realizes the depth of that, just yet.

I had to convince her to splurge on the shopping trips. She’s a naturally thrifty person, doesn’t let herself spend a lot very often. One time I wanted her to buy a Porsche, but she settled for an A5. I wanted her to get a Chanel bag, and she bought a Louis Vuitton.