interrupted

it took losing my own lover to realize just how profound a loss this is.

for six years, i was viewed through his eyes.  he saw me as beautiful, i was beautiful.  he saw me as a deep thinker, a great mom, and his support and therefore i was all those things.  for six years i practiced my identity through him and because of him.  because of his love, i loved, because of his joy, i was joyful, because of his grief, i grieved.

now i am suddenly lost, confused, at odds with my own being.  a girl, interrupted.  am i this? am i that?  who am i really, now that i am so so lost.

so we do these minute, selfish things to bring ourselves back to par with who they knew us to be.

i bought new clothes to be beautiful, i cut my hair to be adventurous.  it's trivial really.  these small details.  a small stone cast into the ocean as if that will stop the onslaught of the tide.  moving, moving, always moving.  whispering to me "you don't know who you are without him"

i am left here to rebuild.  i have to rebuild, my entire fortress crumbled around me the minute he died.  my identity is gone, stripped away with the loss of my love, the one who knew me to my core and loved me anyway.

of course, i am left reminding myself that the core of who i am is still here.  who he knew remains, the strength, the stamina.  it's here.  born out of fire, born out of ashes.  beyond the trivial, beyond the minute details- the core of who i am remains.  it is he who is gone.  left to the rebuilding of my memory and those who knew him.  the sharp reality of his self forever gone, instead only memories, hazy with the interpretation of my mind remain.  a minute with him would bring it back as sharp as a knife, as consuming as a fire, but the haziness remains.  himself forever left in a fog, a mystery.




it feels as an all consuming fire, eating alive everything in its path.  burn, burn, burn.