It was a Thursday morning, when the world stopped turning.
Everything I knew, gone in an instant.
The silence, pounding in my ears
I fell, headfirst into a deep hole
Fragments of what had been my existence whirled past me
I had to grab something.  To hold on. To ground myself amidst the chaos.

It was a Thursday morning, when the world stopped turning
An ordinary day in the office, busy yet tedious.
The phone rang.  Nothing out of the ordinary there.
But on the other end was not a colleague. Not a client demanding an answer for a late payment.
There could only be one reason for this call.
The words were said and the world stopped.

It was a Thursday morning when I heard those words.
After a beat, I opened my eyes, released the breath I had been holding.
The world started to slowly turn once more
But it was now a different world.
A world without him.

It was a Thursday morning
All around me, people chatting, gossiping, complaining
They hadn’t felt the seismic change.  
Didn’t know that a life had been lost from the world.
My world.  The centre of my world.
The world I knew fell away on a Thursday morning.

You were always the faithful one
with a saviour in your heart
you had seen the light of the Lord
from the very start
even in your darkest days
and the autumn of your life
you never lost faith in the Lord
Lady of the light.

Now you have left this life
and in us a memory
but we all think of you
and how you used to be
you had been the special one
when you lived your life
with a special kind of love
Lady of the light.

And when I look back on life
I often think of you
looking out of your window
the way you used to do
watching children go off to school
in the morning light
smiling to the world outside
Lady of the light.

Now you are there in Heaven
and back again once more
with those who you had loved
who had to go before
always forever the faithful one
when you lived your life
for you had seen the light of the Lord
Lady of the light.

Put me in a coma
Knock me out hard
Because I can’t handle this wounding
I feel in my heart

Strip me of my skin
Burn me to the bone
Because nothing could possibly hurt more
Than him deciding to leave me and go home

Bring me a wave
To sweep me out to sea
Because it would be better than drowning
In my self made misery

Is there a drug I can take,
A place I can lay
So I can feel peace from  
My loss today

So give me the tablet
Numb my soul
Or bring back my lover
Bring him home

It’s been three weeks, and
I’ve ******* more about
the agony of losing you
than you ever did
about the agony
of actually
dying.

On a scale of one to ten,
how much does it hurt?

Guess you had the higher pain threshold, after all.
Then again, you had better drugs, too.

The roses you planted don't know
that you're dead.  
Dumb vegetation can't comprehend
the perversity of its
outliving you, how its
simple act of being
when you are not
is an affront to everything
decent and sane and just.  
A senseless vitality of
petals flash their idiot colours
through a shroud of needling frost.
It's not their fault.
The flowers cannot understand
that the one who gave them life
has died.
Whereas I pretend I do.

And so it turns out that
what you thought was the moon
is in fact just the lamp in an
old lady's window,
and the universe shrinks down
to that one dim square,
where some stranger
is brewing tea, or
thumbing a photograph album, or
tidying imaginary mess, or
getting ready to
go to bed, alone.
It's November, and it feels
later than it is.
You don't know the lady
in the window with
the lamp you mistook for
the moon.  Your orbits
never bring you closer than
this: each one in their
respective window, their
respective light burning low,
and the street between
seeming very dark.
Yet some part of you dreads the moment
when she turns out
that lamp, and no part of you
can explain why.
It's November.
And it's November forever.

My heart was buried with you that day
I was left numb
Holding the weight of the emptiness
That space were you were not
That space where joy had left

I walked around on autopilot
A faint outline of me
Just visible on the surface
With a burning, crippling pit inside

I was beyond the muddy puddle
I was face down
At the bottom of the murky river
Cold
Stuck
Surrounded by darkness
Slowly sinking into the mud
With the weight of my tears
Like a fallen tree holding me down
I was not trying to get up
Because I had no strength to
No will power
No heart  
If I never came back up
I would only see you sooner
And that
Was the only comfort I could see

And then
You spoke to me
Clear as day
And you used that serious voice
Only used for serious things
And you said
And I will never forget
You said
“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare. There are good things to come.”
And like a bolt of lightening
Shot into my chest
I pushed my head out of the water
With a breath of life
And you offered me back the empty jar that was my heart

in the light of life,
we hold hands
and we
close our eyes
and we
feel the blade
of the reaper ;
and we
say
"goodbye."