Four months and one day

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​​Four months and one day since I looked at your face,

joyous smile, here in this place,

where laughter continues and darkness meets light

 Sometimes I wonder if one day I might look up and see you standing right there,

telling me gently, as you stroke my hair, that I look beautiful today.

The tears often roll uncontrollably down,

I look up and I see your frown,

Splashing the floor, no shoulder to catch the evidence of my pain 

I lean to you just the same, unbelieving that in such a short time life can be snatched

 A life that we planned through shared thoughts and dreams.

A life that we lived and for a while it seemed that it was possible to grow old together.

Four months and one day since you looked into my eyes and I told you with certainty,

knowing the lie that everything would be ok.

And I knew that it wouldn’t but that also it is,

pain still raw, to think that all this,

has happened to me. In the blink of an eye.

 Tonight I took too many plates out of the cupboard by mistake,

and the jolt that it makes spills on the gravy.

I cried as I made that too.

You would have asked where it was as you always did,

with that knowing look as I got back up into the kitchen stirring the granules just to make you smile.

And sometimes by accident Match of the Day is on,

when the children are sleeping and the day’s been too long.

I find something you wrote on the page of a book

it wasn’t for me

and still I look for a sign of you, of the life you were living 

now empty and lost and yet

still giving

Through songs in the radio I can’t turn off yet can’t bear to hear and I listen because

in that moment it’s like you’re holding my hand or placing you palm in the small of my back…

inviting me to dance.

I write a birthday card you don’t get to sign,

another reminder that although the time is passing you’re still inextricably linked to

everything I do

I say 

I think.

Four months and one day.

I don’t know what it means, the pain isn’t easing,

your indent still waits on the bed for you to come and lay next to me.

To lull me to sleep, to start another day.