All I can do is sit here and think to myself, What is there except this for me? Not some unrelenting, encompassing love, but a future doomed to a life without you. Stories have been told, passed down, knowledge to those who weren't there to know of feats and wonders, acts of war and small kindnesses, of love and hate, of fierce monsters and angelic creatures, and yet never have I heard a story that captivated me as much as the story I lived with you. The days I wake up calling your name are the days it hits me hardest, when immediately I am aware that you will never answer. I am distinctly aware that my life as it was, is over. Yet my life as it is, is just the same. Insistently, almost, I sabotage every piece of happiness like a poison killing off any weak enough to succumb. You loved me. Forever. I wish no one ever gets to experience the things that haunt me. I'm selfish, and even the haunting is a reminder that once you were mine. In quiet moments, I find it hard to bear, but in moments of loud voices and bold movements, I can't seem to contain the sorrow. How long until we are together again, My Love? What feels like worlds between us may only be a thin barrier, perhaps that since after all we are meant to return to the earth, we hinder our chance at meeting death face to face by prolonging life. Could life be the purgatory Catholics are so certain of, some atonement for lives lost? Lives prior? © 2026 Brittany Tanner