The day she Finally let Go.

Diary,

I do not Ever want Another man to look at me as though I belong to him again. I belong to Only Donovan, and Ever Will. I suppose that such a saying makes me sound stubborn; well, if stubborn be the word of choice to others from their outside view of it, then so be it. I would be so stubborn Everyday of my life if it could Somehow bring him back to me.

I have found for myself, however, that it cannot. If stubborn is the word of choice for how I am behaving then others do not Understand. Stubborn implies a willful choice of conscious mind which dictates such behavior. I would say, if anything, I am more like Stuck.

I do not wish to be; in fact, I wish More than Ever to be Freed of him Forever, to be released from this hold he has upon my heart and to be able to Live in Ignorance of the Joys he's brought to me as well.

I cannot handle all this pain, Diary. I simply Cannot do it without him here with me to Comfort me and Understand me. He is the Only One who Understands my Joys the same way I do, and he is the Only one who can Shelter me so Perfectly from the Pains that correspond with them as well.

And, Diary, if he cannot be here to Protect me from the Pain of Losing him, then I wish I never Even had had him here to hold me through Anything Else at All.

My lips feel so tender just in thinking about his kiss, Diary. My eyes close and my hands become Heavy with some kind of Spiritual Density which Somehow doesn't know the difference between my thoughts and the Reality of the event actually taking place; they begin thinking for themselves and they Want to be wrapped around his body, my chest Pressing Ever so Gently yet Firmly up Against his, forming into and tracing themselves Along his sides and back, and then up around and into his shoulders, and then Even More Lovingly if that is Possible, along the sides of his neck, and sealing It All up around the square frame of his cheeks and chin, All the while Surrendering Completely to the Passion that exists within the Power of his Lips and Taste and Touch.

I mentioned Prior the Weight that is Present when Love is there, and All I can really tell you, Diary, is that Each time the Memory of him Strikes me the way it just has, my hands are heavy and my lips are tender, and When they Realize he is no longer here, they feel So missing and So much more like they could Never Kiss, nor Touch, nor Love another quite So much.

It feels as though they have detached from me Completely and Remain detached from me and Floating out in the air in front of me, Always just barely close enough that it Appears that They are Still within my Reach to Reclaim when I want them, and Yet Time and Time Again I find that the Reality of it is that they Are and Ever Will Remain Always Just Far Enough Off and Just Aeirified Enough that They Could Never Be Reclaimed As My Own Again without that Weight and that Consistency that Only Don can Give Them.

Diary,

 

I wish I could explain to you the Power that there is when His lips touch mine. My heart Stops just thinking about it. Everything else that is around me vaporizes down into nothingness while the Material of his Kindness and Respect and Compassion For me Overtakes it and Completely Consumes the Now Empty space around us with a Solidarity that is Unparalleled by Anything Else that I have Ever felt.

 

...My whole body buckles beneath me with what's vaporized, but Somehow my Spirit Yet Remains Standing There Upheld by That Purer, Surer Matter.

 

The Only Way I can even Begin conceptualizing it is by saying that it is as though Someone has come up behind me and as Gently as one would flick a Speck of Dandelion Fluff into the air around them, has done so at the backside of my knees and in doing so has in a similar way to blowing the fluff off of a dandelion stem, Erased Them out of My Flesh Completely and released the Spiritual Matter of Them into All the Air that is Around me. As Soon as they are flicked away from behind and no longer Left to hold me together, my Entire Body Falls Along with them onto the Floor into a haphazard heap of robustious listlessness, while the Spiritual Essence of my knees somehow becomes more Solid and Gentle and able to hold me Together than Ever before.

 

I Cannot Even Tell You, Diary, the Meaning that is in it. It is So much More than just a kiss, and I will Never Understand Again how Anyone Could Ever Kiss someone and find Any Joy in it at all without having such Density of Matter and Sincerity as This within it. I Cannot bring myself to doing it, Diary, and I Cannot understand how others Can Speak so casually of Such experiences either. It is a Moment which belongs to me and Donovan Only; Nobody else could Ever Understand it Quite the Same way We do, and I refuse to have It taken from us, Diary, for Anything Less Than What It Is.

A collection of notes, never delivered; written perhaps for her own Piece of mind more than Anything:

 

Donovan,

 

Wish I could sleep. Wish you were here.

 

Ari

 

~

 

 

Donovan,

 

You are my rock.

 

 

 

...Don't know what else to say.

 

 

 

Missing you More Now than ever,

 

Me

 

~

 

 

Donny,

 

Missing You. In Every sense of the word.

 

Ever Yours,

 

Ari

 

~

Donovan,

Diary,

I do not even know what to write to you today. I miss him so much more than I could ever explain to Even you. And sometimes it feels like the Only way I'd ever stand a chance at having it be understood completely, is by having him standing right here by my side, his hands gently shaped into my shoulders as though the weight of them is more a part of me than I am, and his empathetic heart and eyes Reaching out and delving deeply into mine.

I guess that is why I so naturally begin writing things out to him instead of you. I feel sometimes like even a blank page with his name at the top of it captures better Everything I feel than the paragraphs that it would take to explain it All to you. And with other people? It is nearly always futile from the start; no matter how much I mean to say exactly what I'm feeling I somehow Still yet remain unable to hit the core of it and end up talking all around it instead. -Ah, and now in typing that I want him here with me again. I am not one who has ever needed much of anything, Diary, and yet Somehow I find the Deepest truth and the most Peaceful feeling Only in allowing myself to acknowledge that it is him that I need More than Anything.

...God grant me the strength I need to endure;

Ari

I wish you could see the way he looks at me sometimes, Diary! ...Or maybe I mean more like I wish you could Feel the way he looks at me sometimes! It is so soft and tender and it makes me feel like Anything in this world could come at me and Still I'd be the most Valued and Respected person in it. It is so elevating and yet at the same time so leveling; so uplifting and motivating and exalting, and at the same time so down-to-earth and Real and Truthful and Sincere. He anchors me in some way which is impossible for me to explain. I feel so much like I am floating away without him.

 

And his gaze, Diary.. Oh, his gaze! Everytime he looks at me I feel it cutting through me and penetrating into the very fabric of my soul. It is so admiring and still so expectant. And it is so humbling and comforting to me.

 

And Diary, I have said it before and I will say it again, I could never do Anything to be worthy of such an Elevating gaze; -But then, he would tell you the same thing about the way I look at him.

Diary,

 

What does one mean when they say they have found "The One" anyway? Or that they are seeking out "The One" or so on? I am so sick of all of this talk of Miracle Men that surrounds me! Is there no middle ground? Has the world around me idealized to the point that even if they found "that one" whom they are seeking for they wouldn't even Know it if they had?

 

What is it that Lasts, anyway, Diary? For myself I have found the Only Thing that Lasts Through Life is Love. But what exactly is Love, anyway? I have thought that I have been fortunate enough to Feel of It a few times in my life, but Everytime I have Thought it as the Real Thing I have been Left Only to Myself when I have tried to build upon It and be Sure of it.

 

Do you know what it is like, Diary? To have the very Essence of Everything that matters in this Life torn away from you as though it Never even belonged to you in the first place? It is hell itself if I have ever known it; It is incongruence with Eternity.

 

-And who else would understand it if I were to explain it to them but you, Dear Diary? My heart is bare before you, and it is bare before Donovan just the same. But aside from you and him, there is a loneliness which is so personal and so impossible to explain to others that I am forced either to find peace within the incongruency or else to feel no matter where I am as though Everything that is of Matter to me is not understood with the same significance by Anybody else who is around me.

 

I dare not speak of it at all, but rather suffer myself to keep in Silence such matters of deep importance, when in Reality I desire nothing more than just to feel a Comfort enough with another human being to be able to pour it all out into them and have them share with me in even the smallest portion Some understanding of this kind of Deep and Lasting, Steady and Assured Joy it is I feel even just in thinking of him.

 

Sometimes, I think that I just want my memory of him to vanish completely and leave me the ability to Go On as though I've never felt Something as Deep and Real as what I felt when I was with him. But then I think again, and when I do I realize that I do not really want for that to happen at all. I want to carry him with me Always, Diary. (And not just because he is somebody, but because he is Donovan -I cannot put it any other way but that). -I have never said anything Truer in my life than I have when I have told him that I love him.

 

But Truth in this Day and Age, Diary, seems only to be valued to others if it is a commodity of convenience. The moment it requires Courage to stand by it and preserve it, the Truth is aimlessly abandoned and a Ghastly doppelganger is set up in its place.

The Weight of Love

I have never seen eyes purer than his, Diary! I just want to Rest in them forever. There is no language to describe it. Not even a photograph of them in their most strengthening (-and somehow simultaneously weakening) moments could sufficiently capture the Comfort that is there in them when he is actually there with me looking back at me and into mine, allowing me to venture into his, even if only for a Time.

 

There is so much power in our eyes, Diary! Windows to the soul, they say; but I say more they are more like Gateways. My flesh is stripped away when I am looking at him, and Only Love remains. -And the strangest thing of all, Diary? It is Then that Every touch becomes an Ecstasy. My flesh is stripped away and enveloped with Spirit, and somehow at the very same time it is Exalted and More Present, Real, and Capable of Feeling than it Ever was Before.

 

There is a thickness and a substance of matter that exists when Love is there, Diary, and Once you have felt the weight of it and carried it with you for a time, Everything else that you experience feels <span>so</span> inordinately light without it.

The day she Knew

(She'd never be the same without him)

 

Before him there was the light of hope that one such as him existed.

After him there is the comfort of Confidence and Assurance of the realization of that specific hope's reality.

But with him? With him, Diary, the before and after mesh into one eternal Now- a Now in which even the most turbulent of times is triumphed over with the steady assurance of solidarity that Only he can bring me.

 

-Without him completely? Before the before? Or to think (heaven forbid it!) of an After in which he would cease to exist and would not carry through with me? Both are inconceivable to me. He has Always been a part of me, Diary; to live without the Now of which I speak that exists when I am with him is not at all preferable, but is somehow still bearable so long as the Before and After yet remain with me.

 

We both have a journey, Diary, which God in His Perfect Love must allow us to forge through seperated from one another for a temporary time. This is the only way for us to learn certain Truths which we could never have been able to learn if we were Ever yet together.

 

It is a Mercy, Diary, that God allowed us to forget. To have him remain with me Only as a hope inside my heart is preferable to attempting to bear a full knowledge of Once being with him and now having to be without him. I can hardly bare it these past few months, let alone my whole life prior.

 

-What is it that we learn through brokenness, Diary? -I realize that I need him- my soul is not a Soul without him. It is as though we were fashioned out of the same Spirit- split into two and only now kept apart by this denser, darker matter which we call Earth. If All the earth were purified and Lifted Up I trust, Diary, we could no longer remain apart- the Elements would demand otherwise- we would at the very moment of That Purification be immediately and instantaneously drawn back Into One another.

 

This earth is the Only thing which could Keep us apart, Diary. Ah, my heart can hardly bear it. I yearn for us to Yet be One again. And I trust that that same God which Fashioned him and I from that same piece of Spirit can hear the cries of my collapsing heart, and can feel as I have felt, Diary, the symbiotic yearning of Don's Spirit to be at One with mine. Earth and hell may combine against us, Diary, but I no longer hope, but rather Know that One Day, Love will conquer All.

Time ticks On.

Dear Diary,

 

Time passes by so slowly without him here with me. It is as though every passing moment is another eternity that keeps me forever within this heaviness and grief. I mentioned once that I'd prefer to be able to freeze time, but what I failed to mention is that that is only if I would be able to freeze the good moments and make them last forever. In the current state I'm in freezing time would be the very last thing I would want to do.

 

My Only Grace seems to be that all around me I know that time IS still passing, and it reminds me even on the days where I experience a sudden dissonance of detachment from everything else that contrary to everything I feel otherwise, I am, in fact, still alive, and that my heart is in fact still beating.

 

If the world cannot be the same for me ever again, Diary, if my sense of time and place and distance insists on remaining so wretchedly and utterly distorted, at least I can find comfort in the one constant, consistent, and unwarpable thing this life affords me. No matter the wave of feelings, or the happenings of circumstances, no matter how stuck in one moment my heart or spirit or even my entire being seems to be, I can always look to the steady clicking of the clock, or the swaying of the tree branches even in the slightest wind, or the aging of small children and find comfort in the fact that time ticks on without me. My world may be warped, but the world around me is still moving, and some days that is the Only thing that gets me through.

The day she realized she wasn't living for Love; Love was Living for Her.

Diary,

I am not even sure of what to write to you today. I feel as though my heart has been hollowed out and is void of all feeling altogether. I do not even feel as though a single memory of Love remains within me. It is a difficult experience to explain. Perhaps I feel as though I am a little child again, with not a care in the world and no concern or awareness of any feelings past or future other than the feelings I am experiencing in this present moment.

I have always thought that that is something that I want. But it seems to me today that it is emptier than I remember.

I realized in a blissful moment the other day that even my joy is darker without him. In some cruel-twist of irony, the moments of my purest happiness somehow become anchored down with my greatest heaviness in wishing he were here to experience them with me.

I think, though, Diary, that even the memory of missing him is something of a comfort to me. It brings awareness to the reality that he is now no longer with me, but it also brings awareness to the reality that at one time, even if only for a small moment, I could call him mine.

I think I have learned today within this vacuum of detachment that I've felt (-or haven't felt?), that even my pain is preferable to feeling nothing. I do not even think, Diary, that reverting back to the previous Joys I've known with all memories of him erased would any longer serve to satisfy my soul. I cannot trick me; He has become so much a part of me it is as though the very fabric of my soul is fraying and nothing but the fabric of his Love can keep it from unraveling further. I feel some days as though my entire body has unraveled and every thread of me is lying bare on the ground in a haphazard heap of separateness of what was once previously interwoven to completeness by the careful caress of his hands.

The world can crumble around you, Diary; The very fabric and the matter of everything else can go to waste and can disengrate into nothingness, but once your heart has felt a Love like This, nothing can ever be the same. My body is lying threadbare and haphazardly on the ground; my skeleton, my muscles, my veins, my everything- but somehow, even still, my heart yet remains in place and yet continues beating on its own. And sometimes, I could swear to you, Diary, with tears flowing as freely from my cheeks as they are now, that the only way my heart ever could have learned to beat like that was from him, -and only him.

The day her diary listened, because no one else could hear her.

Diary,

Life is so heavy since he left. I feel as though the mass of my heart has expanded but the muscle has stayed the exact same size. As such, it is as though my heart has fallen through me and has been weighed down to the very ground of the last moment where he said he loved me. Every step I take in any direction away from that moment takes all the courage and the strength that I can muster and only stretches my heart further. It is as though my heart is as heavy as a ton of steel, but is at the same time as thin and easy to stretch out as taffy- a taffy that does not have the ability nor the courtesy to ever break, but only to continue stretching infinitely thinner.

I feel everyday with every step I take as though I am plodding through the densest matter possible. It is as though all the atmosphere on earth has been gathered up together and is weighing down on me specifically. It is something akin, I suppose, to how it is in the movies when the rain clouds gather up and come over a single person, but this is different still because the atmosphere of it completely surrounds and nearly suffocates me. It takes all the strength I can draw out of me to stand against that weight that is doing everything it can to keep me down and to walk against that density that is doing everything it can to keep me stagnant.

-I do not know what I think of all of this. My heart and my emotions are so heavy and dense, and my thoughts at times seem to be equally so and at other times are instead so racy and all-over-the-place. I feel so much like I have never belonged somewhere as well as I have belonged anywhere as long as I have had him by my side.


...I just want my heart to turn to rubber and bounce back into me again.

I cannot cry. I wish I could. I do not mean that I am keeping myself from crying. I mean that I wish with all my heart that I could cry, but for some reason I cannot. If my heart will not become a part of me again, I wish, at least, that it would break. Somehow though, I find that even still, I remain stuck somewhere in between.

-What am I, Diary? Am I my heavy heart? Am I my racing thoughts? I am not even sure that I am any more broken now than I was before we met. ...In fact, I think I am more whole.


-And with that, a tear dropped on the page.

After Donovan's death.

Arianna comes across a love letter, never before discovered.


My Dearest Ari,

I'm so sorry. -If only there were some way that I could help you understand.

I do not wish to rationalize my behavior. I know that I was wrong. And I think somewhere I've known it all along. I have just refused to recognize it.

My flesh overruled my heart, and where I thought I would find fulfillment I was found wanting even more instead.

-How could I ever ask you to forgive me? When all was well with me I forsook you and knew not how much you had become a part of me. Now, all I thought I loved has been taken from me and I recognize that what remains, even after all these years, is You.

The emptiness was always there without You. In truth, I think it always will be. Now, more than I ever was before, I am ready to be whole. And now I know that it is You I need beside me in order to accomplish it. But now, I fear, for me it is too late.

It is not you, Ari, who is undeserving of me. It is I, that will ever-be taking two steps forward and falling another step back treading in the footsteps of your shadow.

Yours -If you will have me- And, I fear, Yours Even Still if you will not,

Donny

When one reads of love one often reads about the stars aligning and all of the circumstances which would have otherwise kept two soul-mates apart dissolving and warping into the perfect circumstance in which that Love can first be recognized and then be further cultivated and preserved. But writers of such fantasy are dreamers at best. They disregard reality and the circumstances of this life. They disregard the error that is inherent in each of us, that has grown within us over time and has often become to us as individuals deeply hidden behind the positive functionings of our character, and as such, has often become indistinguishable to ourselves as flaw.

Such stories do not take into account the effort that it requires on each lover's part to recognize, accept, embrace, and then commit to discovering and then unrooting those blocks of character which would otherwise keep them from each other. And then ever-commit to that same process over the course of the relationship, and then a life-time.

Donovan, true to his name was a Warrior. A Chieftan. He was skilled in all manner of worldly things and he conquered day-to-day living with diligence and ease. Arianna, true to her name, had beautiful, dark, flowing hair and olive skin, and she carried herself in all manner of conversation with a poise and a spiritual perception which was otherwise uncommon to find.

Every opportunity to really Love which Arianna and Donovan had experienced previously in their independent lives had been met with heartache and with opposition. Surely, the stars would align to unite two such people who even down to their very names were perfect for each other.

But such was not the case; Arianna and Donovan's love story would be no different. The stars did not align; in fact, they scattered and became covered up with a thunderous and ominous thickness deeper than ever before. Dark, coal black clouds thick as iron curtains covered the entire sky of opportunity from the very beginnings of their relationship until it seemed as though you'd never again see even as much as a glimmer of light piercing through that blackness.

The Gods, in light of the circumstances, others would say, were not in favor of their union. But Arianna and Donovan knew differently. They knew that amidst All opposition and weakness and folly that earth could muster up against them, the Only thing that could have yet continued to link them together was the very Power that had Once Itself overcome every pain and retribution which earth and hell could hurl at them.

Tears of deepest gratitude would stream down Arianna's face for the unsually determined and war-like strength which she was able to feel through times when the sky was blackest. And in like manner, the gentleness and tenderness which was so true of Arianna's character would become a part of Donovan in a way which he had never before been acquainted, and as such had never before anticipated, either.

The day he said he loved her

Diary,


Today we spent all day together! -All my life I have believed that love is just a fairytale and that real happiness was meant for everyone but me. But today something inside of me has changed. You should see the color of his eyes, Diary! They are deep and soulful and it feels like they are reaching out through mine and into the very muscle of my heart; I can feel his hands inside my chest cradling my heart within them.


If I were to have read that for myself from anyone else before today I’d have been the biggest cynic. But it is different once you have experienced it; My eyes are brim with tears just thinking about him.


There is a matter between us, Diary, that is invisible to the eye and can only be felt by the heart, and it so perfectly links our hearts and our compassions to one another. He smiled at me today and he told me that he loved me as he reached out for my hand and fell into my eyes and kissed me. I didn’t say anything back, but do you know, what, Diary? -I think I love him, too. :).

No human being would ever want to see another in this much pain and agony, let alone someone whom they had grown to love as deeply as Arianna had grown to love Donovan. It would be impossible for Arianna to relate to any one else who had not been in her same position what hurt more- being separated from him lying in the hospital bed in that much pain by the locked-down door and not being able to stop the screams or even to reach out and comfort him at all, or seeing through the glass window within his agony even still the Love and Deep Desire he had in his eyes for his own pain to be able to swallow up the sorrow he knew she was feeling through this all.

Donovan’s body had suffered tremendously, and would yet suffer any additional pain that could come to him, however difficult, if only it meant that the pain and heaviness in Arianna’s eyes and heart could be lifted and erased. And Arianna would just as soon have been in that hospital room under quarantine experiencing his pain for him. Thus, their highest joy in making love, their knowledge of their seperateness while at the same time being one, was in this situation the very source of their most intricate and seemingly insufferable pains.

You see, regardless of how completely you grow into “one” as a couple there yet remains that ever cruel twist of separateness that never can be combined. You yet remain two separate, distinct, individuals who experience your own reality- and as such you experience your own pains and sorrows which another could never take away from you. As much and as deeply as the one wished to be able to reach out to the other and swallow up his or her pains and take them on themselves instead, still their separateness remained, as solid and sure as the locked-down door and as clear as the glass window which now separated them. Arianna’s pain was Arianna’s pain and Donovan’s pain was Donovan’s pain, and it could never be another’s.

Through the heaviness of it all, however, the joys that they had shared together continued to shine through the darknesses of despair and warm and lift their hearts and spirits, and in those last moments right before he slipped away, lingering through the space between her heart and his, there was a Peace in that room that had penetrated through that locked-down wooden door and clear glass window; a Peace so solid and yet so fluid Only Love could have been the culprit.

A note from Arianna's Journal

At times I feel as though I am in two seperate places at once, and often times I am more present in the past moment of my mind than I am in the present moment of wherever my body physically happens to be.

All day today the comfort of his eyes has been as vivd and as real and as in front of me as though he were here right next to me looking into mine. -I store those moments up and I carry them with me in everything I do, they are always with me,- but days like today seem to overtake me with the reality of his presence.

The soft, deep, chocolate brown of his eyes wraps around me and enfolds me in a safety and security that is as real as, or perhaps even realer than, the past moment that my mind has presently taken me to of being nestled up against him in bed at night with his bare arms cradled gently around the frame of my naked body. My hand reaches up above me and traces the square frame of his face causing me to more fully turn into him, my bare body now on top of his, his arms now curled around me, hands resting softly against my back, and his face now perfectly square with mine within the frame of my two hands. Our eyes meet as my lips part and so perfectly come together with his, melting into putty and becoming as palpable in that moment as my soul is solid and secure. He thinks of me as I do of him, each wanting nothing more than to give All of ourselves to the other, and He and I become “We” from there.

The sacredness of such an act is something which others in the world may never quite understand. The solidarity of my soul and his coming together as one and through so doing knowing and solidfying that we would ever yet be together with each other as one, reaching and working and striving towards a common goal in all things- spiritually, temporally, physically, emotionally- offers me a comfort that cannot fully be described. It is a comfort so solid and secure that it reaches beyond the fleeting and the fickle and into the infinite and the eternal.

-His eyes are always with me, and on days like today when they are with me so completely I believe whole-heartedly that he is reaching out to me, drawing upon that power and connection and Oneness which we share with one another to grant me peace. “You can make it, Arianna,” his voice reverberates through my mind, “And I’m still here with you, every step of the way”.

The warmth of sunshine beams in through the bedroom window as Arianna awakes and prepares to face the day ahead of her. But the welcoming warmth of the sunbeams is in direct contrast to the coarse coldness which she will have to soldier through in facing yet another day. She wishes she could just curl up and go back to sleep and have the peace that only it affords her.

It has been 10 years and still the pain remains. They say it goes away with time, but she thinks it has only gotten worse. You never get used to having someone who was once a part of you taken away. You only get better at putting on a poker-face and pretending and parading to the world that despite your loss, you can be just as though you've never lost anything at all.

The pain is always there, and it is the contradiction of the pain which the world around her demands that is difficult for her. The more days she makes it through successfully pretending, the more the reality of the pain is manifest in a night like last night.

She tosses and turns and fights against the warmth of the sun as she argues with herself in her mind, trying to convince herself that maybe today will be the day in which she finds something that even so much as resembles a portion of the joy which she once had. This argument works sporadically, but over time she has come to believe that maybe even it is nothing more than a fantastical wish, and on most days the logic and the evidence of this side of the argument seems to outweigh any other.

The act of getting herself up and out of bed from day-to-day has therefore become nothing more than an act of pure self-discipline, coupled with the hope that even if she will not receive of that same joy herself, perhaps she may be able to bring within that day some small semblance of it into the lives of others. -And perhaps somewhere deep, deep down in some forgotten or closed off chamber of her heart there yet remains some small seed of hope just waiting to sprout up that despite all the evidence and logic that proves otherwise, Ultimately, Love will conquer All.

She lay in bed flat on her back staring up at the ceiling as her tears fell freely down her cheeks and thoughts of everything that used to be went reeling through her mind. She wished now and then that she had the ability to freeze time in such a way that a single moment, or rather, a string of moments could live on forever. But she had come to know for herself that such a wish was exactly what it professed to be and would never be anything more than that. She was acquainted with the harshness of reality; Life gives and then it takes away, and sometimes what it takes away lives on within our hearts forever.

There is the happiness of the memories, the fondness of the joy, and the peace and comfort which comes from knowing a Love as real as this was something with which she was once acquainted, but there is also the pain that creeps up on her on nights like tonight to remind her just when she thinks she is finally okay, that some... thing.. some... piece of the very core of her heart yet remains missing, and that perhaps it always will.

This is a pain so plaguingly personal that even the tears rolling down her cheeks only communicate in some small portion the hurt that still remains. It is a loneliness so solitary that even though she wishes to with all her heart, she does not know how to share it with another. She reaches over to her night stand, cups her hand around her small, palm-sized digital alarm clock to check the time, curls up from her back onto her side, tears flowing even more freely than they were before, knees slighlty bent, head and shoulders slightly tucked in towards her body, and wonders to herself if her heart will ever heal. She winces in pain, curls her knees and head in closer to her body, takes a deep breath, wipes her tears away, and exhausted with emotion, finally finds sleep.