Poem: Like you…

Each day can either engulf me in pain

or amaze me with Nature’s glory

Like you, I have suffered so much harm

Like you, I struggle to breathe at times

But, like you, I want to live, so I look up to the heavens

I know the moon looks down on you before it does on me each night. I see the stars of our ancestors watching over us, and I wonder if we’ll make it too, like they did.

Like you, I don’t trust easily and am often in survival mode

Yet here it is, summer again, with you so many miles away

The sun is chasing me, as you see it first

The days cycle through the year, and the seasons change, even if I try to hold my breath to stop it all. But breath comes, sometimes against my will. My body’s will to live is greater than my mind’s wish to die and join him.

Damn him, he told me I must live on without him!

And there it is again, this miracle called life: a beautiful flower, a wild, sweet raspberry, a blueberry, and my beloved blue and gold macaw

Tears fall, celebrating the beauty and grieving the cruelty of this world as my country destroys itself

Day after day, I hold on for you and all those stars that look down upon us

“Lucky us,” you say! I truly believe we are lucky, for there is life, and we found each other

Despite all the negativity, a miracle happens over and over again each day with you: the chance to connect with another and to love like I have never loved before

All of this friendship ends my loneliness and soothes my broken heart

You soothe my broken heart

and

you give my broken heart someone to love

and

in return I can live again