You see, I’d forgotten the sound of your voice in the dark
the glint of your eyes, your smile by the fire’s warm light.
A colder fire burned the letters you wrote, every day for months,
letters that I’d read before bed, holding your words in my heart
and whispering my dreams into the pillow as I lay awake,
wishing and afraid.

Sleeping became easier as the fear of losing you
became the reality of losing you.
I couldn’t fear the present, the happening, now.
I could only cry, and the tears sent me to sleep.

Suddenly, I can remember so many reasons why I loved you.
Your hands, the music you made tenderly over your
guitar on a summer’s evening, your voice carrying on the wind,
your zeal for life and laughter, your conversation like mountain springs,
refreshing and flowing down naturally from heaven, and me, a girl becoming a woman, thanking God for this gift, this boy becoming a man.
I had so much to learn.

Memories now, of hanging my hopes on your
shoulders though you could never carry them.
Days were not days but hours and minutes and seconds,
counting until the next time I saw your face.
All that time spent sitting by the mailbox
waiting for letters while wanting more of you.
Wanting and wanting, because it was never enough.
By then, my life was you and you were my life.