Where Are You Now? — Mud and Miracles

I think of you in every quiet moment.

You’re in the dramatic creases of the laundry

when I’m folding it all alone,

The rhythmic pauses in rocker as I rock my baby to sleep

And most painfully

in the heavy weight of the darkness

When I lay down my head down at night

And when I lift it up again to find the clock at one am, too.

It begins as our memories.

Trips to Canada.

Camping.

Costa Rica.

Casually hanging out in my back yard.

Picnics.

Yoga studios.

Walks in the woods just the two of us.

Reiki.

You sitting and listening so carefully.

You were the first person I told I was pregnant.

I couldn’t even get the words

“I have to tell...” out

Before you grabbed my arm with glee and yelled

“You’re pregnant!”

Soon, though, the joyful memories become

Your last days

The last time we spoke

And me waiting to hear from you again.

Waiting for the next update…

The next step closer to “better”

That never came.

And now, the waiting is so silent.

So slow

So painful

So heavy

So, really, non-existent.

Because I don’t really know what I’m waiting for

Except, nothing at all

So, I guess I’m not really “waiting”

But rather, moving on, reluctantly

Pretending to be in limbo, when I’m not.

Sometimes

Your memory is mixed in

With that of my Dad

My Grandma

And my friend from high school.

Different pains

So vivid.

Each one of you still so alive in my mind

In my dreams

When you visit.

And I wonder where you all are.

At night
I never really know when it is I stop thinking about you

Stop re-living those memories together

And fall to sleep.

In the day

I never really know when it is I stop thinking about you

Stop pretending I’ll hear from you again

And move on living.

It’s like I go back and forth between

Regular living

And

Waiting for you.

Searching

for some dangling thread of you

To catch on to

And hold

So I can keep you close this time

Not making the mistake I made before.

A mistake so very final.

Still, I search for where you could possibly be

And try to figure out how I missed where you were going

How I got it so unimaginably wrong.

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