A Poem and Nothing Else

I wish there was more than our sorrow that tied us together Oh to have known you before When you were the yellows of Fall And I was the bright greens of Summer Before we were both the browns and barren branches of the winter But friend, you had already started your journey towards the winter I had not I was forced to begin my end too soon To accept the cold brittle loneliness for longer than most To long for the past while I still live in it While it’s heart still continues to beat in my hands A past surviving through my memories like they're life support My reluctance to let go breathes the air into its lungs When all you can do is re-read the same chapter of your life over and over It becomes the final chapter of your life You will always live within it Your fingers cut by its pages It is my winter chapter Longer than those that proceeded it Filling up with more pages than any winter chapter should Pages as good as blank Still a youth but sent to the snow filled corners of my life like a child to bed without supper A punishment of the heart for loving too much

For loving unconditionally I can hear what they say In hushed whispers

of how tragic this all is.

How tragic I am. But I am not tragic

Or damaged

Or broken I’m just simply not who I was before I’ve changed There are no missing pieces here No cracks Just a different shape of me than what they were accustomed to

Pressures that failed to be strong enough

Or hot enough

to press me to diamond

But instead to marble

Stonger… but colder But you understand You understand what it’s like to search a room for someone who will never be there To speak to them though they can’t respond To still hear their voice though they’re not speaking Your heart aches for what coexists between the supposed to be and can never be Haunted by the hand that you long to hold A body that you can still feel the warmth of next to you A hand and a body That you cannot accept are just memories now Nothing more than some physical attributes ascribed to a character Who had been in the stories that were written on earlier pages

You understand We are tied together by common strings of sorrow Bound in different books But on the same chapter Oh to have known you when you were the yellows of Fall And I was still the bright greens of the Summer