Where did you go?

One day you were here,
and then,
with a twirl of my long messy hair,
I reach out and you’re gone,
the smile of home shifting
into an anxious ocean of concern.

My hands feel through the dark aching for your skin,
but the warm body I once knew
transformed into a mountain of lifeless pillows.

Death can happen in that split second,
while your eyelids blink open to a violent crash,
bloody carnage too thrashed for life support.

The love you had for your beloved is taken from you,
dropped into your guts,
like a well placed body shot you never saw coming.

You should’ve seen the warning signs.

“Stupid naive girl.”

You begged him not to go—
the roads were too icy,
the conditions weren’t safe,
your flood-drenched face,
jumbled in mouth sounds with no translator.

He couldn’t stop the hunger,
the drive to put pedal over metal
and be free.
Your ghost voice echoing out the door as you watch
taillights become dimmer and dimmer.

And then you hear the crash.
You run to save him,
but you’re not fast enough. Barefoot feet,
cut open by the gravel knives on the worn highway paved
with the sharpest of turns and ancient potholes.

Despite your pathetic attempts,
you can’t get there.
There is no way through.
You bleed,
dirty-faced,
hands and knees,
clothes torn,
wailing sick animal sounds,
cut off from the pack.

You do things you never thought you would do.
Fully confident your mouth-to-mouth and tourniquet tricks would
save him.

But you didn’t make it in time.
Your appetite for control,
shut down by the higher power of defeat.

You gather the few respectable garments worth keeping
and crawl back home,
bloody, tattered, brokenhearted.

Picking up pieces of you along the way,
long forgotten fragments,
shards of glass, blinding against the glare of the sun.

He is gone.

Dead.

Not coming back.

You sleep in hopes of visions in the night,
but you know those sugar plum fairytales are just haunting images of
a past that will not return.

It is time to let go.
Let go of the fight.
Welcome your fresh tears as much-needed rain,
softening dry soil cracked from draught.

Fertilize the deep whispers waiting to be churned.

You look behind you,
“No, please, let me sleep. This nightmare isn’t real, I just need to wake up”.

But you no longer see with ordinary eyes,
a deeper vision is the only chance of escape from this underworld.

Eyes of the soul,
know the way home,
the invisible path through.
They have been patiently calling for your return.

You stand.

Naked.

Alone.

Hands in surrender,
no longer tough enough to bare knuckle grip
safety.

Sadness, grief, fear, hurt
are friends in this new world,
but so is deep connection, vulnerability,
and a joy that is not dependent on another’s presence.

It’s yours.

Crashes will come.
No armor, however thick, will protect you.
And so, without choice,
you take that heavy weight off,
one piece at a time,
with the only magic hand that can remove the layers—
the one connected to your own arm.

The world is made to live in,
to love fully and hurt deeply,
to laugh with cackle
like freedom,
and cry with an endless well of rivers.
And when the daily deaths knock on the door,
let them in.

Squeeze every last ounce,
and then take a deep breath.
Another sunny day is waiting for you to come play on the seesaw,
spin wildly with the merry-go-round.

Let your hair down,
feel the wind,
swing back and forth between all worlds, and know
this is home.

Home is where you are.