You're the omniscient mist that floats through and breathes life into these cold and dreary mornings. You know, the ones that seem to drain all life from even the most vibrant of flowers. Their effervescence lost its brilliant effect on me when the light left your eyes- now I'm as worn and desalinated as the nuclear soil we tread day in, day out, trying to find a life and make it work with people who are dead on their feet. Body and soul.

I haven't said your name in weeks- and I don't know anymore if it's that I'm too proud to admit that I failed you or if I'm just afraid that saying your name too much may make me forget what it sounded like when you said mine.

Everything is unbearably final now, every step I take dripping with the solemnity of this pilgrimage I'm making in desperate search for the religion I found at your firmly planted feet.

You fell down and broke me; with each flutter, pulse, and pinch, another piece of my spirit was ripped mercilessly from my body and I was made to watch in paralyzing agony as you flew away, so quickly, without so much as a parting glance.

I can't think of words truer than a seething "I hate you". But I don't know if I really mean you, or if I mean myself. I hate myself for loving you, from the tips of my fingers to the brim of the next universe.

Where are you? When I cry, when I ache, when I froth at the mouth with unbearable rage at this realization that hits me like a bouncing boulder rolling with thunderous might down an eternal gradient- over, and over.. and over: you're gone.

That's where you are.

That's where you've been.

And where am I? Stuck running circles aimlessly, trying to kill the time on a clock that seems to rewind itself every single damn time I close my eyes.

I can't picture your face without it costing me a moment I could be using to look for you, and, yet, I am compelled to stop at the whim of a cool breeze, the whisper of a rustling tree, the glisten of a ripple through the puddles I stir as I march at night.

Every day, I walk as hard as my feet will allow and, every night, I stop and fix my gaze on the sky. It holds the moon, the stars, and somewhere, way out there, it holds you. And I think that maybe today I've marched with enough fervor and sacrificed enough opportunities to cash in a memory that if I am still enough, that mottled blanket of a sky will envelop me, pull me into its orbit, and lead me back to you.

I am devastated, obliterated, and desperately cold without the warmth of your existence to glow right next to my heart and give it a reason to continue beating through the long nights and the brutal days.

I am stronger than this world, but I am not stronger than this world without you. Not today, at least. Today, I hate you.

I'll try again tomorrow.