I feel you in the quiet places of my soul;

Slipping around the edges and hiding in the dark corners of my mind.

If I close my eyes and breathe

ever

so

slowly,

concentrating on the rise and fall of my chest

with

each

inhalation,

I can almost feel your fleeting touch move my hair

or slide down my cheek.

Is there still love there?

Do you long to caress me as you once did?

Or, instead, are you drawing energy in tiny sips

until the day you can finish

what you started before

I

finished

you?

Even now I wonder if I would resist.

There were good times, at least I think there were.

I don’t know if memory serves me true or only

some sad, romantic version

I longed for like

the oxygen your hands refused me.

There you go again,

brushing past my hair,

igniting a flame in my belly that I have yet

to

fully

extinguish.

Perhaps tonight you will come to me in my dreams.

In the darkness you will hold me,

loving me in ways you found too difficult in life.

I think I will let you.

If you embrace my heart,

I will follow you into the dark

and we can be together

as we always

should

have

been.