A look back
And it is gone.
No, not vanished,
But softened
A color meld.
The vivid paint
That dripped and ran
Now blended
With the hues that
Came before.

There is hardly a worse phrase
Or a worse feeling
Than day one

It is heavy, like a rock
swallowed whole;
An interrupted clock
Re-wound, reset  
For what seems the
Hundredth time

Day one since…
It echoes in the mind,
A painful peal reverberating
Through the cavernous halls
Of the heart –
Newly empty

Empty, save the wine
Spilled by guests
Who left too soon

82 weeks after.

I sit alone and look
At a picture of us from the
Day we first met
Happenstance that it was
Even captured.

I sit alone and wonder
About my life
Had that picture never
Been captured.

But that isn't how
Life works
Is it?

He said
She said

Unseen blast
I saw red

He said
She said

What you said
All I felt
      
                Again. Again.

He looked
She sighed

They were your
Red-rimmed eyes

It was nothing like I imagined
and was everything I wanted it to be

We drove. And drove.
Our destination was a party
We ended up in a field

Everything that had come before
Melted away in the sweet darkness
And yet was as present as the rustling wind

Our shoulders brushed
Our shivers mingled in the frozen air
We were shaking, but we were at peace

Everything past, everything remembered
Forgotten, yet knit together
The pieces picked up, held so close

The roof of my car
Silence, laughter, tears
We owned it all

Holding as tightly as possible
Aching, clutching for more
The space between and around us

I can't explain what happened then
I don't think you could, either
But we went back there again

We drove. And drove.
Nothing declared
Everything (and nothing) understood

Such beauty I've never known
Than the stillness of that night
Everything and nothing.