Slippage

And so it goes my darling
It is all slipping away now.
One memory after another
1,250 days with you lodged in my heart
Fading into the background of history
that will never repeat itself again.

One errand mailbox after another
swept up in the tides of my receding love for you.
And I feel so lonesome for the comfort of your presence
I could just slip away with it all too.
Just lay there and let the water carry me downstream
feeling the familiarity of it tickling at my sinuses.
Knowing that if I just took one deep breath
I could end this now
and spare myself the grief.

And I'm crying tonight
Each tear a love letter I'll never write to you again.
Each gasp catching in my throat a poem which you will never hear.
The slow march of water
and the way she loves her gravity
is bearing me away from this place of nostalgia
and heartache.

The cut is through the bone
sharp, deep, and splinter stinging-
But not bearing the mercy of heat to cauterize.
I am raw and fragile in your absence.

And although I am not waiting
for a world of what ifs any longer
I am stunned with sadness that those dreams
I shared with you
will never be real.

And sadder still,
is the revelation
the day is fast approaching
that I will wake up
and find I no longer love you.

No longer see your smile as I once did
breathtaking and broken.
I will not see you and remember your name.
I will not recall your body with fondness.
Won't long to reach out and touch your face.
Won't laugh myself hoarse with you by my side.

And this passing
this current of change
is not something I fight
but for the grief of its
brevity.

Or perhaps it is the length of it-
Such an odd round number
divided into endless iterations
that has me spilling milk
just to sob over it tonight.

And they tell me
"this too shall pass"
and I hope it does.
Because at present moment
I do not think I will ever look at you
and not see you as the end of the world.

A thunderclap
I will cower from
if you strike too close to my skin.
A gathering of clouds I do not stop to divine any longer
but rather run head long for cover where you cannot reach me.
A rumble somewhere deep in the soil
I feel even through shaky feet.

A storm that took more than my home with it
when it left.
It took the safety of certainty-
The love of joy's visits when it came to
knock on my doorstep.
The equal to my passion I thought was reflected.

And we can blame it
on every raindrop individually if we want to
We can name each one a different excuse one by one:
"We grew apart."
"We wanted different things."
"The timing was off."
"It was too much."
"We changed."
"We loved each other, but love isn't always enough."

But none of that
is going to make up
for the flood I let loose tonight
and eventually
I will have to collect the refuse
and take out the trash.