THE Night

Day 1827.

Another year is marked.
Another year has passed without Luke.

Fewer people come.
Fewer messages are sent.
Fewer people remember.
Fewer tears are shed.
Fewer candles are lit.

But, my agony remains.
George’s and Adam’s too.

Our bodies and minds altered, activated, distracted.
We know this dance, it is familiar, but still so complex.
And so, we are tolerant and kind to each other as we stumble forth with incompetence. 

We light the main candle at the time his last text went out, at the last proof of life and I sit vigil through the night, THE night.
The night he stopped living.

I wasn’t there to hold his hand that night.
I wasn’t there to soothe his fears.
I wasn’t there to tell him how he was so loved.
But now, and every year, on this longest of nights, I am here beside this fucking candle, a symbol of so much, too much.

And I can’t believe, what I know to be true.