There is an empty chair
that heads the Christmas table
that you my love would fill
if only you were able

But you're here within our hearts
Christmas and every day
We all love and miss you terribly
every hour you spend away

Come home safe to your family
your children and your wife
That once more we'll be together
once more you'll complete my life

So with a Christmas wish of peace
for you and those under your care
I raise my glass to you my love
and soldiers everywhere.

The pain I feel is not my own
least the pain that hurts the most
For it belongs to another
and it hurts more with every post

I see his pain in black and white
and feel it in my soul
Not allowed to help him through it
denied his hand to hold

And while I'm sat here hurting
searching for what to say
I would gladly triple what I feel
if it took his pain away

I can feel the mask is slipping
that the cracks are plain to see
with every poem that I write
people see the real me

They see the pain I'm feeling
they sense what I have lost
and I pray that in their lifetime
they never have to face this cost

For so long I've been "doing fine"
and "What's up?" is "nothing new"
But the truth is I've been broken
not so cleanly, but in two

I tried for so long now to hide it
while I regroup and make me whole
but the truth is that aint happening
the lights gone out, I've lost my soul

So for now I'll put the pen down
crawl into be and close my eyes
And pray that in the morning
I'll have the strength to live the lies

I never knew the darkness
until it was too late
My once knight in shining armour
now clad in rusty iron plate

The first time I saw the darkness
it took me by surprise
How such a sweet and gentle man
could have such anger in his eyes

But the anger couldn’t be contained
he had to set the darkness free
And though I’m not sure what I did
he let it loose on me

He said after he was sorry
that the fault wasn’t all mine
that he would never come at me again
he would never cross that line

But there’s a darkness lives inside him
is it the best that I deserve
after all I have to take some blame
after all its all I’m worth

But I find if I watch what I say
make sure he doesn’t get so sad
life with him is pretty good
and on the whole its not so bad

The darkness doesn’t spill out much
but he’s my husband I’m his wife
and its up to me to do my best
to give us both a happy life.

I look back now and can’t see what the rush was all about.

I sometimes wonder if it would have been different for both of us if we’d waited.

I mean, what was the big deal about getting it done before we were legally allowed to. Did it make it more special, more precious, more anything?

It’s kinda sad, the reason I remember it. It’s not because the earth shook or I heard choirs of angels or anything, in truth it was awkward, it was fumbled and it hurt and it didn’t take very long. I just remember it because it was my first.

It’s not that I didn’t love you, as much as a girl three weeks shy of her 16th birthday loves anything, it’s just that I wish it had been more. I wish that we had saved each other until we knew what we were doing and knew what it was all about. But how does that work? How can we save ourselves until we’re better at it without doing it first to know what we’re doing wrong. Or doing right. I just wish we’d done it better so I could remember all those things about it, about you, too.

I think about you sometimes.

I know it’s been nearly 25 years since we last spoke, just because that’s the way life turned out for us. But I wonder where you are and what you’re doing and if your life is everything you wanted it to be. You used to paint such great pictures about what you wanted to do.

Although it was never the same picture twice.

I bet you’re an artist of some kind. Or a professional dreamer, if there is such a thing. It’s a shame we never kept in touch, but probably for the best. School doesn’t go on forever and neither do the lives we had while we were there.

We get grown up lives instead. Lives with mortgages and bills to pay and jobs to do and responsibilities.

You and me, well we belonged to a time before that. A time when our biggest worry was if we’d done our homework. But we shared something that we only get to share once.

And for all that it wasn’t, I’m glad I shared it with you.

Think of me when I am gone
but do so without a frown
for I'm no longer of this earth
I'm just elsewhere looking down

I wait for you by candlelight
in the rocker by the door
knowing it is far too late
but waiting evermore

the roads they are not safe night
with bandits all around
and I know my brave brave husband
would fight and stand his ground

the clock ticks on in silence
as minutes turn to hours
how can I shed this fear
as my courage it devours

ears strained I listen
to every crack and howl
recognizing in an instant
the sound of play thats fowl

the sound of running horses
the clash of sharpened sabers
shouts and cries of agony
toward death its author labours

but with the silence of the night
noises carried on the breeze
could be the battle close at hand
or off a thousand leagues

I clutch my breast and hold my breath
as a shadow comes to sight
of an injured wounded man
still bloodied from the fight

I rush to catch him as he falls
praise be that he is you
you're exhausted, wounded, bleeding
but with gods help you'll make it through

and finally we make it home
but I'm afraid I must lament
"you bought semi skimmed you idiot,
I wanted 2 percent!"

Men! They can never get anything right!