Ten years
Tonight, it’s personal.
Somewhere in the unknowable hours, ten years ago tonight, she was stolen from us. The hole through which she was ripped still bleeds. Sometimes it gapes and weeps and aches, leaving me reaching for nothingness and screaming into the emptiness between that night and the rest of my life.
Most of the time, it is a small black space in my heart. Both an absence and an unbearable presence. The burned-out ruins of a once beloved home.
I am never — will never be — without it.
Maybe this isn’t the place for these words. It may seem an aggrandizement of my pain. But it is my pain to do with what I will. I can’t banish it, so I’ll brandish it. At least tonight, and for the next four days.
Then I’ll try to tuck it away again. Not wave it in anyone’s face. It’s mine after all.
Tonight, it’s too big for just me.
