darling,
it hurts too much
to watch
as you chase
someone else's dream,
as they chase
someone else's dream,
and no one's
chasing their own.

darling,
it hurts too much
to watch
you pass through
the valleys of life,
as the shadows
stretch further
with every step,
and the valley
stretches too.

darling,
it hurts too much
to hear you
say to me,
in that crystalline voice
that warms my heart,
"the only way
is through",
while I stare back
and whisper to you
"the only way
is through".

darling,
it hurts too much
to look up
and face the sunlight
with eyes
that've only
tasted the dark.

darling,
you love
sunlight.

(after a night before dawn)

Last night, in the dark
before the world remembered light
I walked a field:
  wheat, or poppies,
  or something left behind
  by something that once loved the sun.

And there,
  not waiting,
  not departing,
  was death.

Not a blade.
Not a silence.
She was seated (or maybe had fallen),
  like a prayer
   forgotten mid-kneel
   soft, unfinished and
    unheard.

Her eyes
  held the curve of a question
  too old for answers,
  too tired for fear.

We didn’t speak.
We had no need.
We were not mirrors
but echoes,
  trying to remember
  which silence we belonged to.

For one breath,
(maybe longer),
I thought:
   she needs me.
And something kind began to rise
  not from mercy,
  but from something lonelier:
recognition.

But she had found me too.
And maybe she thought
   I had something left
   to offer.

We were wrong
  about each other.
But right
  so achingly right
about the sky.

I had no name
  to give her.
She had no end
  to lend me.

So we breathed.
And the field,
  if anything,
  felt fuller for it.

Then I walked
  not away,
  but toward whatever
    was beginning
      behind the horizon.

Easter approaches.
And sometimes,
resurrection requires
  no witnesses
only
  the will
   to keep walking
    until light
      remembers
       your name