#0055

I hold your life here in my hand.
A pile of scribbled lines, barely legible.
I see the birth of your first child.
I see heartaches and joys.
I hear concerned relatives whisper reverently
In the corridor outside your room.
There's the build up of panic and investigations;
Frequent examinations;
Reports, referrals;
As they seek your label desperately-
As though their lives depended on it.
The satisfied crescendo as they stamp upon you
The achieved diagnosis.
It's the result of investigations
And the way you have lived.
The smoke you drank in;
15 a day; 10 a day; 5 a day;
You never suspected the course you charted.
Yet I hold it here, in my hand,
Clear to me from page one.

#0054

Wanting to look him in the eye
And tell him that he was wrong about me
Yet, in that very wish
I betray myself.

Even light casts shadows.
Your love. My memories.
Stolen moments where I glance back
To check the grass on the other side.

#0053

Words like Mortality and Morbidity
Thrown around
Like juggling balls.
Eyes that hold back tears.
Eyes that no longer form tears.
Desensitisation.
Desperate clawing for truth;
Healing...
Sense.
A world with no arbitrary restrictions--
No more tickets to curtail your travel--
No time.
Just bounteous swaths of possibilities.
Unlimited by constraints.
Mortality.
No more a creature of dust
Covered by bacteria.
Every cell my own.
Awakening to a life apart.
An endless journey upward.

#0052

I continuously think of your welfare
Over my own.
I will learn to take care of our daily lives
As much as I am able.
I will accept your opinion
In humility,
And kindly do anything you need.
I love you...
Enough to forget the past
Remembering only this feeling,
This quiet assurance
That tells me I could be...
And that I should be...
Yours.

#0051

Well, I guess that's it;
Door closed.
And who can tell who shut it?
You or I?
The heavy thud of wood on wood.
The narrow escape of my face
And my heart.

It may be that I rejected your hand;
I held up my head, walking tall
Towards an anticipated future.
I didn't turn back to look where you stood
And as you tried to run beside me
I brushed you away...
So, I suppose it was only right
That you should stick out your foot
And trip me...

As my head hit the mud
I was elated at your victory.
How right it was that I should land at your feet.

I don't know how long I should lie here
Before attempting to stand.
Perhaps I will lie in the dirt
And make a pattern of it
As the sky cries to liquefy my solid ground.

#0050

Because it's unremarkable
I can pass through the day
More focused on the failures
Than the exalted triumphs.
Because I'm used to it-
The butterflies-
They've flown far away
To bless some other love.
Because life crowds my dreams
So you can't take centre stage,
To be my hero throughout;
So my dreams are solitary.

For all this, I love you no less
And significantly more
Than the first day I held you,
Tears flowing,
With the overwhelming power-
The sentiment that left me shaking-
Behind that first confession.
And you loved me back.

You've never made me doubt you-
Not for a moment-
Your sincerity and commitment
Has brought us to where we are today.

After the struggle,
Is it any wonder
We are too tired for butterflies?
Preferring just to breathe?
Each moment- each breath-
Is in honour of all that you are.
For, when I see in clarity,
Gazing forward into the heights-
The mountains to climb-
WE are the greatest achievement.

Because I could not hope for anything more.
Because butterflies are fleeting-
And we will fly forever.