Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Saying Our Goodbyes

What I miss most is
The tender way you’d look at me in some random moment,
Or reach for me as if you were reminding yourself that I was real
And that I was here for you,
The way you’d cradle my head when it was hurting
Or watch me with a certain aroused wonder as I dressed for work.
I wish I could retire to those hours when you curled your wiry body around mine
Relying on my warm flesh to revive cold limbs and a doubting heart
Or when you opened up your grief like a doorway
Letting me glimpse a shadow of your beloved soul
That which I adored so much
I’d always complain to you when you hogged all the water in the shower
That you seemed like an only child who didn’t know how to share
Gone are those days when we’d skip holding hands down that dark road
Leaving but always returning to the home that we had nurtured together
Gone are those days when you’d carry me on your back around the house weightless of worry and full of laughter,
Filled to the brim with love
Instead I find myself standing by the gravesite of a loved one and a life that I will never be able to recover
It all seems like some vague dream from some time long, long ago
I am hollowed in my grief
But not gutted by it the way I once was when the world revolved around,
When everything I was revolved around
You
Us
I suppose I have you to thank for that.