I remember the day we said goodbye
I think about it all the time
Spending those last two hours with you
Staring at the clock
As if I could will the minutes not to pass
As if each second didn't bring the inevitable that much closer
I felt all the words I didn't know how to say sinking to my stomach
All the times I thought about begging you not to go
All the wars I knew I would lose
I remember staring at you for too long because I knew eventually I would forget the details of your face
The dimples on your cheeks, the smile that filled your entire face, the eyes that made me weak and the laugh that brought me to my knees
I knew I would soon forget these things
Not by choice
Not like one day you wake up and just can't remember anymore
It's much more cruel than that
It's every morning you wake up and feel a little bit farther away
The memory of you feels even farther out of reach
And you try,
You try like you wouldn't believe
I try to force feed myself the memories from that day
The cold winter wind making our noses numb,
Our fingers intertwining,
Your hand anchoring itself to my waist
But that was months ago
And some days I don't know how we got here
Some days you feel so ******* far away
Some days I don't leave our bed because everything hurts too bad
But every day
I love you more than the last
And I miss you more than most

Looking back I don't know how I even fell asleep that night
Somehow managing to steal a few hours of blissful unconsciousness
I know I fought it at first
Partly because it's pretty impossible to sleep while you're crying uncontrollably
But also because when I finally calmed myself down
(mostly)
I didn't want to waste our final hours together sleeping
All I wanted to do was lay there and listen to your heartbeat so many times I could snap my fingers four months from now and recall the sound
Or I wanted to feel your skin so deeply that on any given night I could lay in bed, close my eyes, and still feel you on my finger tips
But of course this isn't how memory works
No matter how many times I wish it was
No matter how many times I try
At the end of the night I'm always left laying here alone
With only my thoughts to keep me company
Clutching your pillow to my chest, no heartbeat to be found
Running my fingers along our sheets, nothing feels like your skin, nothing even comes close
I don't know how I managed to fall asleep that night
I don't know how I managed to let you go

I was rummaging through our hall closet
Looking for my suitcase
When I saw your old winter coat had fallen to the floor
I quickly picked it up
To rehome it to its rightful hanger
When I noticed your work jacket hanging idle and still
Your name tape peeking back at me
My heart pulling at my chest
And before I could even stop myself my hands were tugging on its sleeves
My fingers feeling the all too familiar texture of that waterproof fabric
That touched my skin in our many embraces just months before
Before I could stop myself I was pulling it out of the closet
Staring at this empty jacket
Imagining your body filling it
Before I could stop myself I was burying my face in its folds
Searching for your scent
The tears were instantaneous
And before I could stop myself
I fell to the floor
Clutching this jacket as if it were anything other than a collection of buttons and threads
I couldn't stop smelling it and I didn't want to
These things are all I have left of you
And although it changes nothing I throw the hanger to the floor and slide into the sleeves,
Pulling this jacket over me
Closing my eyes to imagine for a moment that you aren't even gone at all

Sometimes I see you in glimpses
Snapshot moments with a foggy focus
A man opening the door to our apartment building for his wife
A boy wrapping his arm around his girlfriend as they walk across a parking lot
Staring for too long,
Watching how his fingers fall through her hair
Their smiles, their laughter,
Their normal Tuesday afternoon
They do not even know I am watching
They do not even know
I exist
But today
Their lives played a vital role in our story
These candid moments bring me hope
And I feel the memory of you coming to life in my stomach
Spreading like warmth throughout my body
Until a smile forms on my lips
Oh, how I'm missing you more than ever
And this is the closest I will come
To feeling your love
For months

I used to hate the word soon
I despised it
In the beginning it brought me comfort
It sounded promising
Calming enough to still even the most destructive of wars I waged against myself
Soon
I wish I'd counted the number of times you spoke this word to me
The first word that entered your mind when you had no idea what to say
When you were confronted with questions that weighed more than the burden of guilt that lied on your shoulders
Broad enough to carry the world
Yet you crumbled into a puddle of uncertainty at the inflection of my voice
That warranted immediate answer
Questions that mattered
Questions that would define things with a higher magnitude than you wished existed
Questions that would determine the prolongation of my heartbreak
Soon
At first it satiated me
Lifted my heart a little higher
And warmed the blood in my veins
With tingling fingers
I threaded my hand into yours
"Okay" I would say
And lay a kiss upon your cheek
Soon
The days turned to weeks
And when the weeks turned to months
I began to grow angry
Impatient
"Soon" you would say,
And my questions changed to those charged with rage and fury
"What the **** does that mean?"
Soon
There were no answers
Futile attempts made to cure this breaking heart
You knew it all along and you didn't care,
Not in the beginning, not now, not once
I was nothing more to you
Than an empty promise
A warm bed to crawl into when you
Grew tired of your own icicle sheets
Careful hands on a body that refused to accept that this was over
Hands that would have spent a lifetime molding us back together
The anger turned to sadness of course,
It always does
Inconsolable
My throat burned at the taste of that word
Soon
I never let anyone use that word
As a form of measurement again
I became precise in my actions
And clear with my intentions
And I accepted nothing less from anyone else who dared enter my life
The word was not spoken,
It was not thought of,
Nor written
I demanded certainty from everyone around me
And there were no pardons granted, no excuses accepted, no exceptions great enough worthy of bending the rules
And these were the rules after all
For years, this was how I lived my life
Until I met you
You, who made time stand still
You, who made my heart forget what we went through
The tears we endured, the innocence we lost, the walls we built along the way
You, who held wary hands until they did not shake
Who spent night after night ensuring that we went to bed feeling safe, feeling loved, feeling valued
Who transformed feeling vulnerable into beautiful
You, who strengthened the walls of my castle
You, who built the mote
Hung the drawbridge
And walked into my kingdom with open arms
Always standing at the ready for battle
And after years of hardening,
After heartbreak and skepticism
And everything in between
The first time you spoke the word
Soon
To me
My fists did not clench,
My jaw did not lock,
My memory did not revert back to him
And his lack of everything a man should be
But instead my eyes grew lighter,
My heart lifted higher,
And everything in me agreed that you are exactly who we have been looking for
Soon
Now
This word serves as a token of good faith
A promise that eventually, we will be where we want to be
Each time you say it I close my eyes and see the day you come back home to me
Each time I know that you will
Smiling with the knowledge that we've made it once again
Carrying the weight of that word in our hands
Until we are face to face once more
Locking our fingers, threading the memories, forgetting how heavy that goodbye felt all those months ago
Knowing now that all that matters
Is the fact that soon finally came
And today is the best day of our lives
So for now we will store this word away
This piece of us that comes into play all too often
For now you are here with me
And we have everything we will ever need

Soon

(thank you
from my heart & me)

I miss the way you'd grind your teeth
in your sleep
driving me to the near brink of insanity
every night
as you crushed all your words into
a fine powder of white noise
and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness
of our black hole bedroom
that exists in our own small infinity
of the universe
I'd find myself staring at you
marveling at your stillness
wondering
where your mind
might have drifted off to
I'd press my body against yours
in a futile attempt to feel every inch of your skin
wanting so desperately to envelope myself in the warmth of your slumber
zipping our fingers together under the ocean of covers
anchoring your body to mine

And they don't know what it is to kiss the better half of you goodbye far more often than one should ever have to
That heartache
These empty hands
Throbbing temples and tears that surprise you at midnight when you allow yourself one moment to miss him
To really miss him
To smell his clothes, to lay your head on his pillow, to crawl into the memory of him.
To relive your last moments together
They don't know what this is
And some days, neither do you.
What are we doing? And what do you say to someone who you haven't spoken to in weeks? Months?
There are no words for this type of longing
No string of sentences that make up for months of silence
No amount of time could hope to make up for all the moments missed
All the memories stored for tabled conversations, forgotten
They don't know what it is to feel this pain
How you used to hate public places and now, for some unexplainable reason, you find yourself drawn to them
Constantly searching for him
Any face could be his if you miss him hard enough
The feeling in your gut when you're driving and your muscle memory directs your right hand over to the passenger seat
Grasping for something that is not there
And what was it, love? His hand?
Your fingers fell through the air and landed on cheap polyester instead
The feeling pulls at your heart, is now our moment to miss him?
the tears ready at the flood gates, but no, love, now is not your moment.
Because there are things to be done and places to go. There are sights to be seen and people to be spoken to. There is sunshine to be felt, and rain too. There will be rain. Love, some days, there will be so ******* much rain.
They do not know this pain.
But they could not possibly imagine the flowers that bloom in your chest; the summer air that fills your lungs; the culmination of every last one of their best days all made into one; the feeling of knowing, of being absolutely certain that every last bit of this pain is worth it all.
Because, love... there are brighter days ahead.