There's a space

this is my story and i still don't think it's mine to tell. i don't understand that yet. so i will unwrap it in grammatically incorrect and cryptic pieces. vulnerably, tearfully. i will tell it someday. not today.

there is a space where people used to be...
in my wedding dress. at the kitchen table. on the porch. there is space in the garage. in the closet. the chair by the front door.

in my bed. in my children's beds--this weekend.

i notice my son's whale shark on the rack in the basement. been looking for that for 8 months. wet boot tracks again on the floor. snow is coming. snow is here.

the table i ate at when i was a child with my mother. just my mother and i. and now i will eat there with my children. just my children and i. it's dirty and chipped.

it's home.

a light bulb bursts in the bathroom. one of four lit. porch light out. again. where are my grandfather's screwdrivers? this luggage isn't even mine. graduation gifts used on the honeymoon.

i wasn't wrong for believing.

hours behind a screen of choice. like someone was listening. i think that's all that mattered those nights, was if someone was listening. i'm sorry for every time it wasn't me. and i would also say thank you, but it would come out wrong.

cold baths and the fear of being alone when i wasn't alone. and i knew it. i could feel something that night like there was an uninvited guest in my home. and there was.

rehearsed pleas in may. cries to God in june. recorded cinderella prayers in july. the hope of august. flood in september like dead bees on the beach the day we got married. october winds against oaks to shape them. the oasis of november came in the desert. where else?

there's just a sadness that comes, sometimes.
the breath will leave and i cannot even cry about it. any. more.

but in the bones of this home, there remains the breath of God.
the hope of winter passing will never leave me.

december came as promised. the space is here, where people should be.