I didn’t come tonight,
Caught up in thoughts of you.
Your lips pressed softly against someone else’s neck,
Your arms tight around their waist.

I didn’t come tonight,
As hard as I tried,
I couldn’t muster up the energy or enthusiasm.  

I didn’t come tonight,
Your mouth, praising someone else’s name, worshipping.

I didn’t come tonight
And you didn’t make me.

You died of cancer today.
It knocked you down before we ever even knew it existed.
When we first found out it was living inside of you, and as we waited for the biopsy results, we prayed.
We prayed in our homes and our cars and our temples and your hospital room.
We prayed it would be the good kind of cancer.
As if such a thing existed.
But you can’t pray to change the nature of something that has existed in the shadows for so long.
No amount of prayer will undo the mutation and multiplication of cells that has already happened.
So now we pray for peace.
As if such a thing could be so easily obtained.
And we pray for those you have left behind.
As if they will ever recover from losing you.
We send up prayers to a god who has seemingly forgotten your name, except for the moment he called you back home.

I feel like crying and I feel like screaming.
I feel like falling back into day dreaming.
I feel like pining and reminiscing.
I feel like lying, so I guess I’ll start writing.

Your name,
Repeating in my mind,
A syncopating rhythm when the nights are long.

Your name,
Providing solace, hope, and longing.

Your name,
Belonging to every iteration of who you have ever been, and who you’ll ever be.

Your name,
Containing multitudes of wonder bestowed to its owner.

Writing is muscle memory.
And the muscle in my chest remembers you fondly.
Every beat a memory,
And when it pounds loudly,
The words flow seamlessly.