The Blood & The Bones

I have never sat pressed into your lap and put my lips on the sharp line of your jaw.

I have never made you coffee and drank it in with you in morning’s golden pour.

I have never gone about my day with the anticipation of you coming through the door.

I have never watched the sun slowly fall as we soaked in the last rays of it.

I have never held your hand in woods or by streams or on the top of mountains.

I have never looked into your eyes as we talked about the world’s travesties and injustices.

I have never caught you staring at me in awe of the way love or desire looks on my skin.

I have never felt the whole of you weighing me down into the softness of the bed.

I have never flown over oceans with you or waited on the other side of the gate to welcome you home.

I have never picked out the names of a child I would carry in my belly that we both prayed for.

I have never watched you fulfill a need, a dream, a wish.

So many things I never got to do.

But I have felt the absolute of your sudden absence.

I have sat in the silence that followed goodbye and what it means to never really get to know you.

I have floated reluctantly in the space that hangs around me that was once so full of you, the plans we’d make, the things we’d see and love and do.

A future violently trampled by doubt.

I have questioned if any of it was real and prayed to God it was for that would kill something inside of me I could never bring back.

And I have fallen for you.

I have fallen without all of this that I wanted so much and all that I didn’t in the form of you leaving.

I have loved you. I love you. I do.

And no matter how hard I try, I can’t convince myself not to.

the blood

& the bones