Pulse racing.
Adrenaline pounding out a rhythm in hyper speed.
A scream, like a rock, heavy and covered in fuzzy moss, forming in my belly. Trapped and growing, forcing up to my rib cage, rattling against my heart and choking out my throat. A grip from the inside like the devil's knuckle bulging in my airway.
In my mind, I'm hunched in bed. Fists tight on the pillow my face is buried in. I am screaming and screaming. Tension like a cobweb being pulled off my skin.
Aching so deep I can feel the pits of my insides like shards of glass urging their way towards the surface.
This is how I miss, I miss like a silent stalker catching his prey; hand over mouth and laughing.
Breathe out.
Stoic and strong, I am the ocean, I am the tree.
The buzzing pain in the air swirls and forms a bee hive. Wings that hum and bodies stinging.
Today, while I was wiping down stairs, a song came on. I heard you singing and I stopped what I was doing to share that moment with you.
While cutting potatoes, I tucked the ends aside. A pile at the end of my cutting board.
While walking, I look up. The sky is the same blue and you are not there talking to me, but I can hear you.
I sat and stared at some water, expecting that when I looked over my shoulder you ought to be right there.
I sometimes pause to wonder how you are. I think you are laughing somewhere and it makes me smile. Sometimes I feel like something is wrong, and I send you a hug I hope you know it is coming from here.
Wanting and willing are two different things, like intangible words that's dangle in the air, unable or unwilling to form matter.
A cry splits the air like lightning and rolls as thunder and I shudder.
Tension as a blade that plunged deep into my heart, and I see your face. I miss you.
I look around me and wonder; can you feel it? The reflection in those around me is as clear as still water below a mountain. Crystal clear, we feel, we feel.
Yet it continues.
This exquisite pain, ice cream melting over the back of a hand. Icy trails of agony so palpable I can't catch my breath.
We can't breathe.
Breathe out.
A community in this moment that is watching the birthright passage of vulnerability escape the human trappings. A cat caught in a bear trap.
The refusal to release and let go.
Breathe in.
Then tears fall. The tears that escape a dam before it falls apart. Each one a piece of heaven, eroding the armour so carefully constructed.
The tragic demise of self preservation, for now is the only second that exists.
Breathe out.
How fortunate, the few, who see and understand the feeling of loss. The feeling of separation, not by force but by will. To miss beyond longing and long beyond missing. To pierce the firm exterior and find the blood beneath, pooled and waiting, only to flow. Only to breathe...
Breathe in.
