After all this time
There are no worries
It is as it has always been
We are one
And forever does exist

Innocent words of wonder
Burn the purest of souls to ash
The Goddess of love,
She spews her lyrics in tinkling sighs
Completed by the one whose light burns brightest
He lights the path of others
Consuming their shadows as they pass
A dragon of fire to fight the darkness
And she sings in sweet daffodils
Satin petals and the Heavens open wide
She sings of pain and the dragon feeds
She sings of joy and he watches
As the words are once again absorbed into her essence
The Goddess welcomes this guardian of light
Never knowing that her words
Pilot the fire that eats the shadows that surround him
Bitter pangs of abrasive truth
Wrapped in delightful ditties of eternal enamoration
He fights her darkness
She fuels his fire

The birth of spring brings hope
The breeze carries dreams from far off places
The time is drawing nigh
And the blood rushes more quickly
Every second burning more brightly
Than the one which passed before
Mere days is what lies between Hell and imminent Heaven
Days, which will torture with the slowest of time
Inevitably give way to the rush of unity
Which leaves in seeming seconds
Still, these days will linger
Yet, still turn to hours, and minutes, and now
Ah, if only the now would pass as slowly
If time could crawl from the moment our eyes meet again
To the moment we must part
Perhaps we could live in that place for all eternity
Never having to feel the heart burn through flesh
As the distance grows by inches to feet
To that dreaded thousand miles
Oh, how those smiling eyes beckon
And dreams birth hope
The smell of jasmine in the evening
Brings joy in knowing it's just
A few more days......

A worst-case-scenario mentality
Breeds emotional nightmares of what-ifs
Methodically feeling the pain in each possibility
Preparing for Hell, knowing it is impractical, improbable, and unkind
Each reaction gauged
Smiles erupt in each better choice
A familiar road traveled often
Lead only by a history of pain
It ebbs and flows, bobs and weaves at will
This reality is organized, easy to understand

Random thought of an unlikely, unfathomable future
Vivid like a film
Unwavering, persistent
There is no controlling its outcome
Forced to watch the images forged in a broken mind
Tears burn flesh and a naked heart bleeds
Stop rolling, just...stop
No amount of pleading slows the images
The pain is overwhelming
Far beyond self-inflicted, torturous, methodical thoughts
Uncontrollable, inconsolable
True and real
So very real

There is but one way to stop that future
The one shown in visions of just deserts
The future that smolders through present joy
Preemptive pain is just not an option

I've seen the future my heart has built
The shards of a shattered soul
Offer no comfort

My worst-case-scenario was but a benign freckle on the elbow of a body invaded by metastatic melanoma

Bask in the joy of our hearts
Not in the absence of our bodies
For our souls remain as one

The ethereal screen haunts me
Taunts me with its subtle illumination across a darkened room
It draws words from my fingertips
Just to whisk them away at the accidental brush of movement
The screen, now blank
Unfinished and unsaved
Laughs at me in blinking cursor
Winks at me as I move on
Lost was a masterpiece, or a long and droning soliloquy
Never to be seen
No regrets as the soft light on a gray page still giggles
Lulling me into a sense of numbing safety
Calling my emotions home to the family who never lets me down
Safe in their eyes
As they too are drawn to the subtle light
Across the darkened room

Like being forced under frozen water
Electric burning in the lungs
The heart beats in fire
The body shocks itself alive
As it is dying
Memories flash
In pangs of emotion
The used-to-bes and never-was
A future with burnt edges
The sensation of the last time you touched me
And the death of a part of my soul