One day you will come home, and her clothes will be gone.

There will be an envelope on the fridge. There will be a heart on it, but you will fear what it will do to your own.

“I love you so much….”

Apparently not enough.

You will look through drawers, not looking for signs of any thievery, not in any literal sense, just pieces of heart absconded with. Her top drawer will be empty. It was once full of the little letters and poems you would leave for her around the house:

“I’m walking down to get eggs. Back in 30. I will miss you like the flower misses the sun. Please don’t leave the bed”.

Je Ne T’oublierai

“It was terrible, I walked all around, but you weren’t there. It was the worst. They should really work on stocking you down’ere. I looked and I looked and I looked. It was horrible… but it’s OK now”.

It wasn’t at first site, at least not for you, but you’ve never worked like that. Pretty is priced at a dime a dozen. Beauty has levels, a depth that grows more enchanting the farther down you discover it goes. 

The talking. It’s always been the talking with you, and it probably always will be. Both the playful, gentle words on a Sunday afternoon along with the long, slow conversations about hopes, fears, dreams, and regrets. Every sentence is just another way to say “This is a piece of my heart. Please be careful with it. It’s very important to me… but I want you to have it.“

She will have taken the pictures of you together. Probably for the best. She was always smart like that. She will have left some mugs of her own that she knows you like, slivers of her. She will have left you all of the little sketches she would draw. That drawer will still be full.

You will wonder how we got from A to B. We were always romantic but never dramatic. Did she know she ran my show? Did she know that she never needed to tell me how high to jump? I just would have tried for the moon every time.

Part of you beats outside of yourself. You will (hopefully) wonder not with the idiocy of a sitcom father but with the genuine confusion, care, and worry that you did wrong by someone who owns a piece of you.

“Che Gane?” as the people of Central Asia would say. “What can you do?” Pick up the rubble. You will watch the balcony wind sweep through your prayer flags. Did I forget to plug them in? Maybe they’re not facing the right way. Could be getting a shitty signal. Is Mercury in retrograde?

Namaste – The divinity in me recognizes the divinity in you.

You will take a walk and review game tape. Was I strong enough? Was I sweet enough? Did I listen enough? Was I fun enough? We had fun, didn’t we? In every other restaurant or store, there will be wonderful memories.

I knew I shouldn’t have picked a Malbec. No, she likes a dry red.

I knew I shouldn’t have worn that tie. No, she loved that tie. She picked it out. She used to grab me by it.

What was I thinking? I knew I shouldn’t have sat on that side of the table. 

I knew we should have gotten a booth.

Did we go on enough trips?

You will look for answers where there are quite possibly none to be found.

You will live in a haunted house. You will see her staring at you from her spot on the couch. Her eyes bright and wild as any jungle cat but holding a soft smile, like she’s wondering how she somehow managed to put a collar on a jaguar. 

Her hand will still find a way to run down your back while a cup of coffee comes over your shoulder and a cheek meets the other side of your face. A set of fingers play with your torn up ears.

“How’s it end?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Once upon a time.

You will go to lunch with old friends. You loved how she’d light up when you moseyed on over, just happy as to how happy you could make her. Everyone used to smile the moment she’d leave the table, telling you they didn’t know you could relax like that. You’d turn into jello and soften the moment she came in. You’ve known for a long time that you need to be “reigned in”, like pulling an excited horse or dog’s head into your chest and whispering in its ear.

There will be no “fuck her”, no “you can do better”, no “I didn’t like her anyways”, because they saw you together, kicking in the front door like movie stars. Everyone will express a quiet sorrow, but not because you are sad. It just doesn’t feel right. A cosmic injustice. An affront to whatever gods may walk the stars.

Carry this with dignity. It’s not your first rodeo.

The happy dreams will be far more painful than the sad ones. Your heart. Your heart has always been loud. You’ve always been able to count on it to speak, but Old Faithful will have taken a shot. For the first time in a long time, that big thumpin’ grandfather clock in your chest will go silent. What do you do when your heart is quiet? Don’t worry. Clocks can be fixed. It just takes a bit.

“We heal stronger in the places that are broken” – Ernest Hemingway

You’ll walk the city and pass by familiar park benches. A little exposure therapy couldn’t hurt. It was here. It was right here. She was right here. She kissed my fingers and happy-cried. Always means always. “Je ne t’oublierai”. She kept the letters because she wants to read them. She wants to read them forever…

She said the same about you.

Fuck.

You will plan trips. Maybe it’s time to dust off the old tent and go camping. You will pick through your passport, pondering over various stamps. You will laugh when you catch yourself Googling the weather in Kyiv, wondering how the Ukrainian Foreign Legion is looking this time of year. You will still lift and run, hit the pads, and take to the ice. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll half-ass it for quite a while. That even makes it worse. There is no prescription for this. There will be no rage to exorcise. All the same:

“Better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener at war.”

You will have more than one dark night of the soul when you find hairs in your car, in the bed, in the kitchen, in the shower. They’re all too long to call your own. She was here.

I could call her sister. We’ve always gotten along well. We both think the other’s an absolute riot.

Just to make sure everything’s ok.

Stop.

Stop.

Sleep.

The grandfather clock is just in the shop for a bit.