It’s our anniversary. September first, we met in a garden
filled with flowers. She comes
every year, holding a bouquet of forget-me-nots, as if that will ever replace
her memory of me. She always seems
to blame me for the way the ceremony caused her life to change. Asking me to
ask God why He couldn’t wait one more day. The loneliness is unbearable she says,
the crying tiring, the questions always unanswered. The solid marble between us never quite stifles her sobs.
She cries and she accuses me of stealing her most precious possession, her rock,
her reason for breathing. She always addresses me as father, daddy, or dad.
Never realizing that the answers she seeks have already been given in the
silences between her mourning. This woman, this girl, who carries her grief
bottled up year after year, is my anticipation. For when I feel her warm fingers trace the curves of my
outer shell, and her soft lips kiss my marbled face, I feel worthy. We both know that we can’t keep meeting
like this, but for now we are each others’ surcease. I am the keeper of that
whom she loved most in world, and she is my only companion in this life that is
not a life at all. Today she seems that much closer to ending her journey’s to
my garden. So I listen to her cries, the melodies in her voice, absorbing them
with my entire being. I was born to hold that which has died, in order that the
living may call to them in peace. I memorize the light brush of her fingertips
against my outer shell, and immortalize the kiss that seals her pain, her love,
her hope, and her grief. I seal it inside of me and hope that the God she
serves delivers it for her.
I meant it not this way but the tears just flow and my makeup smearing all the more, leaving behind that familiar filthy residue. I may have begun to drive myself away, dragging you down as well. But it's done, I've flipped the switch and now it's dark once more. How painful is the music to my ears, I can't stand to be alone in it, yet here I am again. I pray you fly back and safely and warmly to me, though I fear I've dug the grave too deeply. As the dirt shifts within my soul, I choke on those loving words I'd meant for you. All the fragments of light I see becoming smaller and I wish to be near you in your embrace that might make me feel the warmth I'm missing. And in reality, I doubt I'd breathe another breath without you. So come hither and quickly soothe my dying heart, you are the only cure I know. I cry and cry again, come hither to heal and love me. Come hither and help me dry my tears.
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