I am a different woman because you died

This feels truthful and awful all at once.

I sense the world around me in a way I never used to. 

I feel the world – deeply.

Everything seeps into me.

The ugliness.

The harshness.

The beauty.

And, the gentleness.

 

I am swathed in life.

It exists all around me.

But, I am a million miles from “here”.

I am not grounded in this life anymore.

Part of my Soul exists some place else now.

Suburbia suffocates me without you.

 

Despite the missingness and the yearning for a life that can’t be,

I am able to see holiness in the ordinary.

I absorb it into me as I bear witness to it’s beauty.

The magic of life is casually stirred into me. 

This sacred stuff becomes part of me as easily

as cheap canned fruit mixes into a jello mould.

 

But, without you,

I have grown quieter.

I live inside my head a lot.

And, somehow I’ve become more of everything

since I’ve detached myself from the world.

 

Like a well used library book,

I am quietly held by the hands of many.

But, I miss belonging to you…

Now, no one calls me their own – yet.

Maybe I will only ever be on loan. 

I don’t know.

 

I wait to be held open and read

– like only you could do.

You once were the man who read me like a well worn book.

A book he couldn’t put down.

But, now your eyes can’t pour over me the way you used to. 

Now, there is only nothingness where your loving gaze once was.

 

As I’ve become more withdrawn and quiet;

I’m more in tune with the people and things around me. 

Your death has made me a keen observer of life.

Maybe this is a gift from you.

 

Like a voyeur,

I quietly watch.

While I observe,

I absorb the energy around me.

Feelings drip into me,

as if fed to me through intravenous.

 

The sense of things runs deep into my blood now.

I feel life so fully because you died.

You death has taught me so much about life and living…

 

Quietly.

Slowly.

Purposefully.

The feelings of the room pour into me.

They mix into me.

And, these emotions turn into the sticky ink I use to write with.

 

 

My feelings live loudly inside my head.

They blare within me so that I actually hear nothing. 

Everything is jumbled.

My entire life is muffled since you died.

 

Except, somehow, in this racket, I can hear my Soul.

My Soul whispers to me in crowded rooms and in the quiet darkness.

I hear echoes from lifetimes ago.

I faintly hear my life’s plan.

The blueprint of my Soul is written in a language

I do not understand; but, somehow KNOW.

I just know…

Somehow, I understand what is being said

without reading the words or hearing them said.

 

In this same way,

I see you

-even though you are formless.

You are gone from here.

But, I still see you

– in the space around me.

I see you in all the ordinariness that surrounds me.

I see you in the mundane and in the magnificent.

 

I see you in the air around me.

You are nothing and everything.

You have become the air that I breathe.

 

I see you in the rain that falls hard and runs down the moonlit streets.

I see you in the sunlight that comes to life on me,

Caressing my collarbone in a meaningful way, 

Like you once did.

And, you are there in the sunshine that coyly blankets my thighs,

as I sit with my toes buried in the sand.

 

I sense you because Love does not know time or space.

 

The breeze blows loose some locks of my hair,

And, these strands of me dance in the wind,

Casting shadows down the nape of my neck.

And, there you are.

You are silently standing behind me.

And, you trace the shadows down past the small of my back

-with your invisible touch.

It feels nice – in my mind.

 

I see you in the wind that rustles the orange and gold leaves until they fall like confetti.

Confetti that scatters onto the ground and signifies fall. 

 

Fall,

The last season when you were alive.

Fall,

The time when everything dies, including you.

 

You can no longer hold me in your arms.

Because you are gone from here.

But, I know you.

I know that you still yearn to wrap your arms around my life.

But how?

How can you do this now?

I don’t know…

 

Still,

I feel like I will fall back into you.

Some day.

Somehow.

 

My Soul tells me that,

We will be together again.

And, you will “hold” me steady and true, like always.

And, I will finally feel like I am home again.

 

~Staci