Why did you have to love me?

I can promise you that it’s nothing against you. But, I turn away because I keep love close, maybe too close, and I think that I will only remember and love you.

            Why did you have to make me love you? I waited for you. I never let patients get the best of me, and fall for treasure and away from love. Then, my love was granted and you held me in your arms, and there I stayed. I gave you my heart in trust. You said you were afraid to love me, you didn’t want to be the one to break my heart, and you held me tightly. You never let go; you never had to. You were taken away, and you took my heart with you. I still feel it with you as it beats hollowly inside me letting me know I am still alive. I still feel it with me as it beats eternally letting me know you’re still alive with me. Part of me died with you – it’s a part I’ll always have. Here, inside these memories of you, I remember me and how I was when I was with you, and I know you will keep those parts with you to remember me. Right now, because we can’t be together, this is how we connect and reconnect. Because I have strength to remember, this numbing pain reacts to tell me that I am awake and we were. For this, I do not resign from safety.

            But when others love, I miss you, I miss love. I can not love – you have my heart. They see me and say I need love and I should love again. Conformity would only infect my wounds right now and they bare no antidote for something non-lethal; they don’t know the suffering.

            I say I have love – that was never put at rest. I thought I had time; I thought I had fate because I had you. Instead, the more I trusted time, the more it turned fate against me. But, it never ended. Although we are separated by life and death, love isn’t, and I still love you.

            Maybe you shouldn’t have loved me.

 

 

Why do you have to follow me?

Lately, you stalk me – you have become my shadow. Everywhere I go, you follow. I see you everywhere. Parts of you I find in places and parts of you I find in people. Somehow, you show up everywhere.

I find your words as they escape a mouth that was never yours. I turn expecting to see your face; instead I am left only looking through a face as it lies to me because I think it might be you.

I hear your heart in sounds that always made me think of you. That song, those footsteps, that laugh, that beat, and I find you everywhere with me. I feel you there, I hear you, but I fear because I don’t know how to see you now. I listen, and I hear. Then, I shutter for a moment when everyone around be only hears the silence of you.

I strive to remember the happiness and feel the way you held me for the first time. I remember the way you spoke to me and how, now, I wished I’d taken it all in sooner. Then, I shiver as I search desperately for your arms that I dreamed I’d have forever.

I listen for the sweetness of your voice as it called my name and I answered in trust of your words, always. I replay it over and over in my mind, but without your voice, it is distorted by the death of your life.

I search in blank walls for your eyes that brought me everything I believed would ever need. I stared in deeply. They loved. They could promise, but could not promise time, only moments that could be given. I remember.

I try to get back to you. I stop, and you stop with me. There is a mirror that can bind worlds, hearts, eyes, for the sake of a memory, and I sink beneath the glass. There, together, we stand in this one reflection. Here, we connect and reconnect through these pairs of eyes when I find you here inside me because I know you will always be with me. Still, I wish you could be here beside me.

Maybe you shouldn’t have followed me.

 

 

Why did you have to leave me?

 I want to try (too hard) to understand this – this anger, this grief, this angst, this despair – but it only torments me. But it torments me to fight to want to understand everything, and I am left coming undone. Concepts and theories never lead to any answers or unheard answers when I think of you. They only lead, yet, to more questions.

 It’s been far too long since I’ve been with you. Far too long since I’ve seen your eyes, heard your voice, felt your heart beat with mine, and I’m beginning to hate this silence. The silence we could sit in easily, securely, tenderly, and just “know” and just “be,” together. In the silence, we were. Now, I feel the silence as it bears emptiness and I sit alone. I don’t think I can take it. I let you drench my mind so, maybe, you could “be” there again. It can’t “be.”

It was only Yesterday, I swear. I see you perfectly, sitting beside me, talking to me, holding me. It was just Yesterday when nothing could go wrong, when we held time between us; it was the only thing keeping us apart. We could do anything, and someday, that would be us. It had to be just Yesterday.

Yesterday is only a day too late, never any more. Always, we connect and reconnect through a mass of Yesterdays – it was not that long ago.

I look to Tomorrow through a window, but I stay placed in Today. I don’t want to get there, and I make Today the longest yet.

Maybe you shouldn’t have left me.

 

 

Why do you have to mean so much to me?

I remember feeling you in the air and breathing deep. To me there was always more to oxygen than molecules of life. It was the aura.

I remember the richness of the air and how I felt completely hydrated with the life of the air when my heart never had to stutter to find its beat. Without watching, I knew you were in the room. Your heart affixed a happiness, and I inhaled. Your smile appended a comfort, and I inhaled. Your eyes fastened a safety, and I inhaled. Your hands were graced, so gently, by the air – intertwined and woven with it – and I inhaled. You were my oxygen, my given life source.

I have to learn how to breathe again. It is this new air that I never thought about having to breathe in this soon, and suddenly, I am exposed without warning – I only know to keep breathing. It cuts holes through my chest as I discover this suffocation. I don’t want to breathe; I don’t want to suffocate. But, I breathe and remember you. We connect and reconnect when I aim to hold my breath, because I know I need air for I am alive, and so were you.

Maybe you shouldn’t have meant so much to me.

 

 

Why did you make me love you?

 You were someone who I wasn’t “supposed” to have, but instead, I broke the limits. Those broken pieces became limitless, and now they are worth everything to me.

Somehow, you were always there for me. You always found time for me even when I thought time had given up on me – you never did. Then I could come to you. I began to discover ways that I never knew existed until you. Inside your eyes became my home because, when I felt like running, I ran to you, and you were there, waiting.

I find myself stumbling, lost because I cannot find myself – I cannot find you – and I fear. But, through this fear, somehow, we connect and reconnect in this bond between hearts because I know you are safe now, and waiting. And I will have to wait, but not forever.

I remember that you always had a piece of my heart, so part of me is always with you, and all limits are gone. These broken limits are evidence that my heart took over – and it left me. I knew I loved you.

Maybe, I shouldn’t have loved you.

 

 

Why are we kept waiting?

Every time I freeze unwilling to take another step, every time I cry when I think about you, and every time I wish that this is all just a nightmare, I know that you are there with me telling me to be strong; you would want me to be happy.

Although I never remained frozen, you are never far from my mind. I take just another step, one-by-one. I know that in time, I will recount my footprints and then be able to tell you the number in which I walked to you. I want to be able to have those steps under me, for proof.

Although these tears dry upon my face, you are never far from my mind. I once cried in fear from being away from you and your heart, but now I smile knowing that I had time with you. Now, these memories are precious and in them we connect and reconnect in those moments. I think of you and push on to smile because it always brought me your smile, and we connect and reconnect in this when here we smile together, again.

Although I can’t wake up from this nightmare, you are never far from my mind. Life has become more of a goal to live and live will within moments that are given. And, yes, I know it will come to an end – you couldn’t avoid it, and neither can I. However, I do not fear death. It is a goal. I see it now, if I was to die tomorrow, I have lived, and I will live until the day I die. And in death I will live again, and again with you because you are there waiting.

Maybe you shouldn’t keep me waiting.

 

 

Why must I keep going?

Every day became a test, a challenge, for me to fight. Through the memories swarming me, I had to remember that I was in Today, but I remembered my heart, and I knew that too much of Today would tear at the wound. Yesterday needed to protect the stitchings that I was working on

Some days, I sat in the darkness, I felt it cutting me on the inside knowing that today you couldn’t hold me and tell me “it’s ok.” I crawled through the eternal hours as I tried to ignore this aching echo that was once a heartbeat.

Some days, I could feel the warmth of the sun just grace my shoulders and follow behind; a day’s relief of the rest I needed. I knew the shadows and words that you left with me, and history comforted me. I had you once. This was never just a dream.

Day to day, I smile. I smile to remember. I remember to smile. It is where we connect and reconnect Today. You had been here in this smile of mine, and I know that there you will always exist. The ghost of your smile pushes me though these days, this darkness, this struggle off attempt to be strong enough – but you believed in me, and knew that I could be. Just another step, and a step closer, but always stepping to adhere your smile of me. You will not have to worry.

Maybe I shouldn’t have kept going.

 

 

Why did this Goodbye find me?

I begin to stitch carefully, letting it bleed when I need to and then repairing again. I watch myself, never allowing my hand to rush through – I know now that I have time. The tears that fall now, I catch. This sound in my chest now, I no longer push away – I reside in it. This thread is thin, but strong enough at times. Remembering, I caress it.

Then, in the palm of my hand, I feel the tracings of where yours had been, the one that I have carried, never letting go. I feel that it had been there; I feel the lack of it now with this exposed single hand.

I stand here on my feet. I watch this sunset – the colures, connecting and reconnecting in their luminosity, yet so far. I can not turn away. I watch, attempting not to blink and miss a thing, for the moment to be over – I know it will be all too soon. But when it is, I wait for the sunrise that follows. I know it always follows. Warmth, light, everything you love and it embraces you. But you knew it would end, and always too soon. Light fades to darkness bringing the cold, I search for warmth to hold me again, but I am left waiting. The darkness is all too long and I shiver, and if I trace the scars, I know that there is a sunrise in my future – I won’t be cold forever. I wait.

I trace these shadows back to you and I open my hands – they will hold on to me as I live before this sunrise. I speak, to you, “Goodbye.” Goodbye so that I may say “Hello” again, like the first time and the last time. I speak to you this now because there was never a goodbye. You had to go, but I would see you again – this was not the end. And I wait for this sunrise. Patiently in the dark, I know there is a dawn breaking through somewhere off in the distance where our colures lie. “Hello” is at the end of my horizon, and my hands wait.

Maybe I shouldn’t have said Goodbye....