I knew I had lost you the second I found myself looking you in the eyes and still missing you. I have your hands intertwined with mine, but your heart has long escaped to find home with a face unfamiliar to me. You still fill my ears with words that could make even the sweetest of candy jealous, but they taste stale. When we started finding comfort in exploring abandoned places that had long lost the life and light that was once in them, I never thought I would have that same feeling when looking at you. When did you become so vacant? When did you stop feeling me an only touching me? When did your words become so cold that they stopped having the ability to make me melt?

Thank you, Al.*

I was born poor, came up hard,
learned early to fight. I didn't die.

Streaming fire struck me three times
from the sky; I didn't die.

I lost my money, wife and children
to a bout of madness; I didn't die.

Many drugs, much alcohol, dead friends,
despair and depression; I didn't die.

Life is what I overcame and survived.

Life is the practice of suffering and joy
that I will continue until I die.
   mce

For Louise*

When we meet,
we will know;
there is no fast,
only slow.

  mce

the selfie stick
with a gun at the end
pointed at me
shooting you

I could convince myself that I never fell in love with you, that I simply wrote you into a fiction novel that was my life. That you were merely a sub character written on three or four pages within the entire story, but that's not the truth. It was not a fiction story it was my life and you were the main character who was written on every page. There were traces of you running through every aspect of my being. Without realizing it my story revolved around you an my characters relationship. I wish we hadn't disappointed the readers and I could've made them happy about the fact that the two main characters ended happily ever after. That didn't happen though, our story didn't end happily it ended heartbroken.

No one has
ever given me
anything greater
than time, light
and silence.

Time to work.
Light to see.
Silence to think.

What could mean
more than these?

   ~mce