With you
I spent my years like money
and what is left now are the shells
of every decision afforded;
the skeleton of time
the only backbone we could manage
not to crumble. Our own had weakened.

For many years
tears would leak like suicide
and I became an expert swimmer,
the apostrophe of all my strength
the board on which I’d surf;
later, the oar with which my raft would be paddled.
I cried an ocean
but still couldn’t willingly drown.

Of late
I ceased believing that I lacked worth
and stopped just existing to pay the karmic debt
my reasoning concluded I must owe.
I unshackled and chose to live outside the cage.
Giving up on failure gave me purpose.

Without you,
the tangible clutter we gathered gets dusty
and I can’t decide if I should blow it clean
or leave these fingerprints to remind myself why.
In shedding the weight of commitment
I am no lighter, but my kaleidoscope
now dazzles like a jewel.