turn on the night light

 We sat in silence in Room 1220, the bustling of the nurses feet and the machines around us filled the space.  beep, beep, beep.  On other sides of the room  as we awaited  your final return.  The hope from his mother filled the air, his life flashing before her eyes, and all she wanted for his future, her bright, shining boy.  I wish I could have  shared that with her, sitting in the chair by the window.  I could not see him in that future. A mere shadow  stood across from me  at the altar.  An empty figure  sat with me at the dinner table, and next to me at the bar. A clouded presence was all I saw  when I was teaching my children to cook our family meal.  I knew he was gone, and I had 32 more minutes until I was proven right. Until then, we sat in silence. 

 the void is dark, grim, an endless abyss  that swallows  what tries to fill  the emptiness of where your life once occupied. it spins, a vortex consuming the happiness in waves that crash around it. time doesn't heal the wound that came from your leave, it only scabs the edges of the void, to be picked and  let bleed when its ready to take me in.  there are times where i am too weak  to fight. and i let it go,  grasping me tight and pulling me down, falling heart first  into anything but a  wonderland.

 there are so many things i could say to you. but the words that i come up with most  are,  "i'm sorry." it wasn't my fault, but i take the blame. was there more i could do? more i could say? none of it would have made a difference. we would still be here, apart, forever. you're with me now, in a different way. that's what i hear, what they tell me. those words do not fill the void, the loneliness i feel without your presence here. there is a silence, now. a grey, dull emptiness that nothing fills.  does time fill the hole? will i ever become whole again? or am i left broken, permanently  fragmented, learning to live as a  broken record that still  plays? I feel selfish moving forward,  yet powerful, too.  the power i have to take control, to live.  but to live, to live and breathe while you are dead is a battle  i fight often.  it shouldn't be you. it should never have been you.  your warm hands quickly turned  cold....

 I twist my brain in different directions, an attempt to make sense of the tragedy that befell upon you, upon us. A rope, already twisted and tangled, a feat to straighten it out that you also took onto your shoulders, when they were already bearing the weight of your own world. In a moment, you were gone. Spirited away into another dimension, occupying the space that Mother universe has provided you, us. Though I cannot touch your rough hands and soft hair, many time has come where I feel you surrounding me, embracing me with your warmth as you once did, an inner warmth inexplicable to those who do not experience such separation as we. When I close my eyes at night and my soul begins to wake, I see you. I see your eyes filling me with adoration and power. I hear you, your soft, gentle reassurance that I am well, I am making you proud. I can smell you, morning after cologne pulsating from your neck, radiating from the t-shirt you wore to bed. I can taste you, the savory sweetness o...