Lost

She was a constant. Always there, he never considered the possibility that one day she would be gone. Picturing the way things should have been, in his mind they should have been together forever. She was proof that his life was good. His job was thankless, his existence mundane, but she made the days better. At least he had her, he would say. It all should have been avoided. The end should have been diverted, thrown to the ground and wrestled to submission. But it had fought back, it reared it's head like so many times before, and while he slept peacefully it wrapped it's hands around them. It cloaked them in it's darkness and they had to separate to escape the murky fog that choked them. When he broke free from it's grasp he emerged into the fresh air, but she was gone. He would have prefered to choke forever if he knew she would be gone when he came through to the other side. Though the day was bright and the air was fresh, he pined for the darkness that had contained them. Because it had contained Them, he was not alone, as he was now. The sun streamed through the trees while twitters from the birds floated from a place out of sight. He could not feel the warmth of the sun, as it beat down on his open hands. The end had stolen it, displaced his heart in that cloud of black. He wondered if she could taste the fresh air, if she was glad to be wherever she was. The ghosts of their unborn children circled linking hands and mouthing words that he could not decipher. Their future home was now a pile of rubble, a stairway leading to nothing. It basked in the brightness as a tear slid down his cheek. He walked over to it, the wreckage of his dreams, piled high in the opening of the trees. There were pictures with singed edges, blurred photos of things that could have been. Like a plane crash of hope, the shattered pieces of his future happiness. He sat on a pile of rocks and drywall holding his head in his hands. He slowly shook his head from side to side, cursing the sun for smiling down at him. If he could choose the weather he would have sat in a downpour of self pity. THe rain drenching his clothes like the pain had drenched his body. But the weather stood in defiance, acting as if this was the way things should have been all along. Their imaginary world was never meant to be, they were all illusions, floating dreams that had been swatted bck down to reality. He shivered in the warmth of the sun, refusing to believe that she was not the one, wanting to lay beside her and hear her breathe. The jagged ruins of their home, the wreckage of youthful love, sighed in a collective moan that echoed the exhale of his spirit. His thoughts were all abstractions, flashes of memories and things that would never be. His eyes were red from the pain, the hole in his chest trickled blood, the only remnants of his heart. She would always have that he said, hoping it would not get buried in her attic of memories, wishing it would be the centerpiece on her mantle. He feared she would sell it, package it up and never hold it again. He wanted her to carry it with her, take care of it, because it was the was the most important gift he had ever given her. It was hers and only hers, she had laid claim to it and he gladly handed it over. She left with his heart and he left with the rubble of what was once a beautiful home. He rocked back and forth wondering if he would ever leave it. An opening in the trees, a house in shambles, people say they still see him there, the man with the hole in his chest. He wanders the lot, looking at burnt pictures, curling up on crumbled floors, sifting through his derailed possibilities, dreaming of the darkness, refusing to feel the sun, thinking of her...