Always

It's that time again - to remember what was lost. To the readers who have been with me through the first 3 of these poems... thank you for staying. And thank you again for being with me through this.

Time heals all wounds, so they say

But I’ve found that’s rarely true

Though countless moons have passed away

My heart still yearns for you

Three and twenty years have passed

Yet still the ache won’t fade

You linger like a shadow cast

A ghost I never laid

Each year, I dread the date’s return

The day the silence speaks

The day the fire begins to burn

And longing leaves me weak

I ache to see your face again

To hear your easy laugh

To take your hand through joy or pain

To walk our other half

We were meant to live this life

To grow, to build, to strive

You should have stood here by my side

As dreams were brought alive

Perhaps I’m still too angry now

At fate’s relentless theft 

How promises were torn somehow

And dreams were all that’s left

I know we both were only kids

And change may still have come

But not like this - not closed eyelids

Not grave where you lie numb

Perhaps it’s the stubbornness I keep

That holds you tethered near

Still picturing the life we’d reap

You beside me through all the years

I watched you grow alongside me

A shadow walking true

But something’s changed - uncertainly

You're fading from my view

Your face once clear, now dim and grey

Where once your eyes would gleam

Now lost in fog, you slip away

A fragment of a dream

It scares me that you’ve ceased to grow

That this year you stand but still

Are you asking me to let you go

To bend against my will?

Do you want me to release

To lay that red rose and part?

To sing our song and make my peace

Then tear apart my heart?

I don’t know how to let you fade

To lose you once again

To feel the flame in shadow laid

And silence where you’ve been

This grief still tears me year by year

It breaks, reforms, then bleeds

It whispers truths I hate to hear

While feeding phantom needs

I know you’d call me soft, not wise

And wipe away my tears.

You’d smile, with that familiar rise

And soothe my quiet fears

"You’ve held me long enough" you’d say

"Now set me free to roam.

You don’t need grief to light the way

You can let go and go home"

But love, I carry what you dreamed

Though your chance was cruelly denied

I chase the path we once had schemed

Through this life and the great divide

I hope you see the steps I take

That you are proud of me

I do it all for both our sake

For who we could still be

So meet me here, just one more night

Upon this hallowed day

Sit with me in the moon’s dim light

Before you fade away

And when your flame begins to slow

We'll speak beneath the moon

We’ll talk until the embers go

Before the sun returns too soon

You were my best friend, my first love

The soul I knew as mine

Your death still haunts me from above

A wound that won’t align

But wait for me beyond the veil

Where silence turns to light

I’ll find you where the stars grow pale

At the closing of my long night