You’ve Taken A Piece Of My Heart With You

My world doesn’t make as much sense without you in it, like I’ve been left to finish a game without knowing the rules. Death is so many things, but mostly it feels unfair and impossible. A reality in which you don’t exist to love us as fiercely as you did, doesn’t feel like reality at all. There was so much more for you to show me, wisdom you so readily imparted on me throughout my life. You have left me to navigate the winding uncharted paths alone – without the light of your wisdom. All of our worlds were being held together with bricks you laid so carefully, gently, with purpose and love. These walls are quickly crumbling and I don’t know how to get a grasp on a proper adhesive to hold them up.

You would know. You could have told me.

You’ve taken a piece of my heart with you. It beats differently now in the absence of your voice, your warmth, your embrace. I just wish you’d known it was already yours – because you loved me, because you loved others who loved me. Your love transcends and transfers from one life to the next. I want so desperately to be present with you, sipping coffee on your porch looking out across the California or Texas sky. One last bear hug or cup of coffee or kiss in my ear. I wish to feel your love wash over me again for even a moment, knowing full well it would never be enough.

What will I do when your footprints wash away and scent fades from your sweaters? For now my sleep is stalked by vivid dreams of you and me together again as if you had never left my side; the memory of you bursting with all the colors I always saw you in. I will hold onto the memory I’ve constructed of you in my mind, for as long as I can, because it’s all that I have. But when the day comes, when the vibrancy of you has drifted and the imprint fades – well, I dread that day with all the heart that I have left.