Bittersweet

This birthday. On my own.

“It’s not a good thing,” the voice on the other end of the phone says. “To share your birthday with someone for so long. It’s not a good thing when you get left behind.” I know it’s coming from a place of concern, a place of love, and a place of being uncomfortable with the pain on my end.

Funny how I thought I was pulling it off.

I am unable to respond. I let the tears fall, unable to utter anything at all, my energy focused on suppressing the audible cry that threatens to escape. I just want off the phone.

Because no one will ever know. No one.

It’s all mine.

This day. Where larger-than-life, pure and perfect love crashes into life-changing, heartbreaking pain. For I was yours and you were mine. And this days was ours. Until it wasn’t. And yet it is. Will always be. Wherever you are…

Do you know that I still love you so? And that I remember everything? Every little thing.

Gratitude. I’ll be safe here, until I can step over into tomorrow.

I feel her. I hear her. I even smell her, still. I close my eyes and I’m at her feet, her hand in my hair. Knowing what’s coming. She knows too. “You’ve had your grandparents longer than most people,” she tells me. Preparing me for now. But it still doesn’t help, no more than it did back then.

Ah, love… how beautiful you are. But how painful you can be. And yet without you moving hearts and making ways, what else is there? Nothing worth having.

“Where’s my hat? And my glasses?” My eyes tell the tale. July 10th, I’m a mess. But l’ll take it. Damn it, love, I’m still all in. So I move to meet the day. Anyway.