The last warm glimpse of the humanity
The last time I felt the love that everyone ever told me I deserved
The last time
The last time I let go of everything I never should have given one iota of a **** about

The first time I've been alone
Truly known that solitude felt like
Knowing what I'm missing and replacing it with an entire reality that is completely subpar
Death
Death and knowing nothing at all
Seems to be welcoming most of the time
The last time
The last hour
The last few moments
Aren't they all the same?
The same as any other hour that we have ever been given the grace to live
Death comes early for anyone
There are always more seconds to live
One more conversation of total import that could have been shared
with someone
anyone at all
The last few words that we spoke could have always been followed with an entire recitation of what we wish we could have known
The things we wish could have learned
The people that we never got the chance to love
The ones that were always doomed to lose

Old, we die. "It's our time."
Young, we perish. "What a tragedy."

There is no right or wrong time for a death.
It's not the end of a book or the cease fire of the raging war inside of us.
It continues on in the next generation of who we are.
It continues on after we're gone.

Nothing ever ends completely.
Everyone leaves a legacy.
Sometimes, it's nothing special.
Sometimes, it's a never-ending joke that your friends and family still tell years later, long after they have tragically forgotten that you ever existed.
Sometimes, its a small bit of wisdom that is always prefaced by "Well, my old friend always told me.."

Sometimes, though, it's nothing more than a wisp of emotions. That small secret longing that never gets named. There is no label for it, no way to tell what it is, but it's all that's left after your dead and gone, and it's all you'll ever have.

When people are far away, it doesn’t mean we stop loving them.

But it’s a different sort of love.

An ache in your heart, and in your thoughts, when they come up in conversation.

A small lump in your throat when you think about how long it’s been since you’ve seen them, or hugged them, or even gotten a text from them.

It’s that single tear you shed when you get a meaningful voicemail after you missed their 4th call in two days because of timezones or work schedules or weird sleeping patterns you hadn’t even realized you’d developed since the last time you were a part of their lives.

It’s forgetting what they, specifically, look like but still remembering how they smell. And how their hand feels in yours.

Just because they aren’t near you, or living life with you day to day anymore, doesn’t mean you can’t love them just as much.

It’s possible that you love them even more. Their everyday mistakes aren’t around to remind you that they aren’t perfect. Their little slip ups won’t unconsciously disappoint you, nor will their poorly timed jokes and indiscreet innuendos make you feel uncomfortable in the presence of others.

Instead you have all of your memories together that are worth keeping around.

And the solid truth that you do so want to see your loved one again.

My heart bleeds darkness

It leaks and oozes the memories I don’t let myself remember

It aches with the sound of my inner child sobbing

Screaming and throwing fits to be let out

My heart bleeds the sadness that I hold inside

It trickles through sometimes

That’s when you see me cry

My heart aches with all my untold troubles

The ones behind the things I pretend to let bother me

The little things that I don’t really care about I just pretend to show emotion so that no one will know that I’m really a robot

With screws and metal bits instead of blood and viens

I don’t care about anything anymore beyond getting through

I can climb the mountain just fine as long as everyone leaves me alone

I’ll catch a ride on the wings of my depression

It will glide me effortlessly back down to the valley of blame and guilt and remorse and I’ll stay there

I’ll wallow there in the lush grass of melancholy

I’ll roll around with the dripping words of the ones who want me to stay

They whisper my defeat from the tops of the hills and yet I can hear them

Their words settle and sink into my very soul until I can no longer even muster the energy walk to the water to drink

I cannot sustain my own life

My lonliness is what ruins the rest of me

The last thing I want to give up

My solitude

It’s what will **** me in the end

Dragging me down into the cave at the bottom of the valley I will lie in the fetal position until I starve to death

Lack of human interaction

Lack of human affirmation

I will never survive alone

As much as that sounds like a negative thing to me

I suppose it’s really not

I can bring light into other people’s lives

As long as someone is bringing light into mine

It’s a chain reaction

Love me

I’ll love everyone else for you

Cherish me

And I can make the world shine brighter than the sun

You are my forgiveness. My long lost way out of this eternal labyrinth of suffering. I have never let someone grow so close to my heart before you.

I have never let anyone hurt me so deeply before you did.

And I certainly never forgave anyone for hurting me like that.

Before you.

You are my forgiveness.

You opened my eyes to the fact that just because I was hurt, doesn’t mean you did it to hurt me.

You never wanted to do that but that didn’t change that you thought what you were doing was right.

We still argue about it sometimes.

But you are my forgiveness.

Just because I know that that hurt was deep

and real

more real than any hurt I have received since was little more than an infant

doesn’t mean that I have to hold it against you

or against myself

I love you eternally.

Growing apart for us doesn’t have to be inevitable

Maturing and changing

Becoming more of who life is shaping us to be

That doesn’t mean that our closeness still isn’t meant to be

If I do nothing else great with my life

nothing of import or worthy of notice

I will go to my grave with the satisfaction of knowing that I did not let my relationships follow the pattern of societal acceptance.

I will hold on to people I have known forever, for loyalties sake.

For love’s sake.

I will never stop loving you, or them, so why should I let the warmth between us die just because friendships don’t “usually” last that long?

When I’m 30, I want you to call me old and laugh.

When you’re 40, I’m going to dye your hair completely grey instead of back to black.

When you finally have those little offshoots called children, they will call me auntie and I will let them name any kittens my hoard of cats is likely to have

When I finally pop a few out, you will be their stern uncle, that warns them against the flighty ways of their ever errant mother

Telling them stories of drunken nights and bad decisions

Scaring them with almost too many details about who we both used to be

Our matching pair of German Shepherds  and our almost identical college diplomas will always remind us of where we came from and how far we’ve come down

The road out of the labyrinth.

This is not a poem about love.

I don’t really love that many people.

Not truly, way down deep in my heart.

I guard it. I numb it.

I don’t let it get hurt.

But that’s really just the lie I tell myself so that I feel safe.

I’m easy to pierce and I’m easily broken.

I hang on too tight to things that aren’t always there.

I fantasize.

Not in a *****

Nasty way

But in a way that makes me hope.

Hope that maybe one day this will mean something

We can look back and remember a first touch

A first word

The first time we knew

Or I knew

And then when you did in turn

Or maybe that will all be flipped around

Chronology isn’t important

What matters is that it happens

Eventually

Some day

Sometime

Soon

My heart has never been this broken.

And you’ve broken it before.

This is real.

This is the end.