Losing You. Twice.

And I felt the valves shut that time,

And for an eternal instant

I knew my heart was closed.

…And then…then it just went on.

Like everything hadn’t changed.

Like this huge, gaping hole was survivable.

My world stopped. Dead.

Still. Impervious to forces

Like gravity or entropy.

All was suspended in the stillness of space.

…And then it just kept on rotating…

My feet stumbled after one another in empty obedience.

My prayers reached up blindly, beseechingly…

But you were my heaven. And everything was broken.

Breathe, breathe…but my very breath, was a dragon’s flame, an affront

To nature. My own fierce tongue rasping the meat from my

Bones, licking the fangs that slowly tore my soul out in hunks.

Moments turned into years,

Devastation into habit. Until

Numbness replaced savagery.

…Until…

Until the unspeakable was spoken.

Until the blasphemous echo faded... And all was

White. Hot. Silence. The prayed-for words never to quench.

…And then…

In the silence. In the stillness.

You spoke at last. And, at last, it

Rained. A gentle, healing rain.