Love letter # 200

In the ragged shadow, a vacuum. An implosion. You – torn from me. Every day heavy. Numb, screaming, dissolving at the drop of thought. The breathless staggering. Unimaginable future.

Then, for a long while, abrasion. The rough grain of society. The hollow chime of voices. The pretending. Yes, I’m good; which I was not. The shape of you in everything. In me.

The sweet and heavy lull of emptiness. Despair as morphine. Pain to take the pain away. A cut to stem the blood. Smile, nod, be agreeable. Go home and write love stories.

Forever, it seemed.

Yet, while my gaze was abstracted, in the quiet mundanity of ordinary cycles, it slipped away. It was not that I recovered, simply that I outlasted it. I just waited, not even knowing that was what I was doing, and, in your footsteps, it followed.

No bravery, no fortitude, not a hint of noble struggle – merely the unspectacular, perhaps unintended practice of patience. Once I was utterly broken, then mostly mended. Simple really. Beautiful. Like you were.