How did you get here so quickly? 

How, in such a short amount of time, did you manage to worm your way into the crevasses of my life? 

Somehow you're in everything I do now. 

Did you mean to do this?

Did you mean to make yourself the first person I think of when I wake up?

Whether it's waking up under the weight of a blanket that makes me feel safer when you're gone...

Remembering how it felt to wake up to your arm around me.

Seeing the dinosaur you won for me that one night...

Remembering how you disappeared and called me right when I started missing you to tell me to find you.

Turning around to see if we're still in the call I fell asleep to...

Remembering how easily I'd slide into sleep with you near.

Opening the damn pill organizer you got for me...

Remembering how you remind me to take care of myself and the things I struggle to do. 

Putting on the onesie I wear to stay warm when I'm trying to figure out what to wear for the day... 

Remembering how you set up a heater for me so it would be easier for me to get out of bed.

How are you suddenly everywhere?

How did you manage to make each thing just another reminder of ways you care for me. 

Did you realize that would be how I started my day everyday? 

Just loved by you? 

Did you know it would make me remember to take my vitamins? Especially the vitamin C you swear by, even if you've gotten sick more than I have this year. 

Did you know it would make me remember to pack some healthier food for lunch because you might ask and I'd want you to eat well too. 

I put on my shoes and I still have that scar from the blister of walking around San Francisco with you. 

I get to work and pull out the heating pad that keeps me warm in an office where everyone else feels normal. 

Reaching down to press my hands against it when they get cold...

Remembering how you would warm them when you were here. 

There's more. There's so much. 

When I realize it. 

When I look back at it. 

It's terrifying. 

How deeply rooted you are around me when you're not even here. 

But I water those roots. 

I let them grow. 

Wild and foreign as they are...

They show me new things. 

Give me stable ground. 

I climb higher on them as they grow with me. 

They remind me of you. 

Your strong protection.

Your firm foundation. 

The way you push yourself 

and lift others up around you. 

They make me miss you. 

They make me miss the real thing. 

But I'll sit under this tree that you grew for me. 

Make my home in it. 

Until I can see you again. 

Bewildered is the word. But is it even the word?

Is there a word for this?
For something that feels like it's both tearing me apart
and wrapping me so tightly in its arms that nothing could ever divide me?

I feel like I'm caught in the waves of an ocean storm,
Tossed back and forth by unforgiving waves.
Overwhelmed by forces beyond my own strength.

And laughing with the wind.
Blissfully wrapping myself in the roiling waters,
Finding a peace I didn't know existed.

I'm caught in you.
Split on the edges of a hundred paradoxes.
Bound together by a strength I didn't know I could have.

I am so lost.
Tumbling through the water,
Closing my eyes to feel the waves break on my skin.
Opening them to a world I don't know.
And feeling like I am exactly where I'm supposed to be.

I feel full.
Bursting.
Barely holding it together.
Overflowing with everything you've ever given me.
I am Generosity.

But I am hungry.
Starving.
Craving more of you
Every day that I don't have you.
I am Greed.

For the first time, I'm afraid of dying.
Sure, I've been afraid of pain and loss.
But Life was a long day.
And Death was a sunset.

And yet...

To have even lived this long.

To just experience this. 

To experience you. 

To love you.

To be loved by you.

How could I complain about losing all of this?
When it means that I had you to lose?

I am yours.

To have. To lose.