A Poem for No One

The miles stretch out between us,
The map we are on,
Expands to show it all,
The scale proportions become more ridiculous-
As we get further apart.
Sometimes it grows,
Like a continent shattering
as the Earth rips
itself
ap art-

Do you feel it?
The world trembles in its desperation to separate us.
In those moments,
I am myself again.
Just myself.
Instead of
Us.
Because we. . .
We ached,
We were sick
(Oh, so sick!)
I can still smell the sterile hospital,
See the gown that revealed your hairy, shivering, and frightened legs.

I cannot forget the low canyons we laid in together,
Always unable to climb out,
Staring at the stars
we could cry together,
lie together,
and hoped to die together.
We would be there, at the bottom
Staring up into that ignorant sky,
Watching the stars,
Awaiting a ride on a shooting,
Nay, blazing!
Beautiful savior we both just knew would arrive.

Then it did.
And it deposited us so far from each other.
We hitched a ride on a star that took us from the deathly darkness we had breathed in for years!
When the sun hit my face,
I was blinded,
I do not even think I ever saw your face through the darkness,
Yet I knew you once.

When my new friends look at me,
They see the high head,
Inner pride,
A life that burns with stubbornness,
Hope.

Sometimes at night,
I feel these miles begin to stretch between us again,
I wonder if you are in the light finally,
Or if you lost your life to give me mine.

I do not wish to be back there,
I know that I am better without you,
But Hell with a friend is always better than a Heaven with no one you know.

I stare back up at the lonely sky,
And a cold salty drop falls from my eye,
For a moment I let myself believe that you are there,
Right beside me,
Then I turn, and the miles
They stretch out between us.