I sat on a Large Rock
While you hunted Little Rocks
The sea lapping at both of our feet
At different elevations
In different places
Connected by the sea
Our invisible string

It is the cruelest twist of fate to be made sick by the things I hold most dear.

The sea.
Love.
Home.

The way your eyes change colors with the sky
The way you bring me flowers on random Tuesdays, because you were thinking of me
The way you worship my body, soft, where I wish it was hard
And the way you open my heart, hard, where I wish it was soft
The way you whisper my name when we’re connected down to our very souls
The way that you are a complete person
And the way I am a complete person
And the way that together we are two complete persons who continue to choose each other over and over again
And the way we are better for it
I never want to forget the way it feels to be loved by you

If grief were a tangible thing, I would wrestle it from your arms.

If grief were a tangible thing, I would store it in a bottle and throw it out to sea with a note that says, “please don’t open me.”

If grief were a tangible thing, I would place a bookmark before your least favorite chapter, and let us come back to it another day.

If grief were a tangible thing, or a wound, easily seen to the human eye, I would be able to stitch you back together with something other than the words, “I’m so sorry.”

If grief were a tangible thing, I would wipe it from your eyes, like the tears that fall.

If grief were a tangible thing, I would be the first to hold your heart while we tie it up neatly with bandages.

If grief were a tangible thing, if grief were a tangible thing. If.

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.