Under The Bones of Our Pear Tree

I am underneath the tree we planted. It bears no fruit. No vessels of sweet nectar to nourish, no ripened sacrifice to provide for the journey ahead, body of fruit flesh for my body in turn.

Denied the trade I forever wish to make.

Life for life.

Though I don't dare do much living... I cannot bare the memories invoked, dredged upon waking and every breath that follows.

Intern me.

Into the earth with you.

I am underneath the tree we planted. Buried below spindle limbs that bow to the wind, eternal victim of nature's unfathomable whims. Immovable. Irrevocable. Callous. The tantrums of a child starved by envy.

We are what you left behind. Scattered to the earth. And in so doing we withered. Grew warped with the torture of your absence.

No more trees to be planted. Days to be filled. Calls of laughter...

Now not even an echo.

To me. Only me.

Who is the ghost? You haunt me, and I haunt our home. The walls we were to grow old in. The garden that fed us. The bed we shared. Hollow. In it I am a shell. Necrosis of the heart.

I lay my head upon your grave as I did your chest. Pear drop tears burgeoning with runaway hope, need. So that you may sprout and grow anew. Fed of my loss. Reborn in any way that could know my love.

That would be enough.

Anything but what you are.

Cleft.

Cold...

No longer mine, instead you lie with the earth. I look for you. In sodden clumps of dirt, coarse gravel wastes. Below. I search until my hands bleed and all passes through my fingers. I tend to seeds to be closer to you. But nothing grows of this grief. This mania.

I do not wish to own it any longer. Purge me of this fealty to memory. Cut it away. Sow it piece by piece and let something else grow.

I am returned to you unwillingly.

Dragged to every joy shared.

You remain my every waking thought.

From your crooked smile to your last moments. How your beautiful eyes cut wide with fear. I cannot bare this. I cannot. But in this bitter grief I am close to you...

The flow of your hair to bones coated with grime, the last of your flesh rallying against rot.

The arch of your spine at sunrise to a mouth overflowing red.

Why did I have to find you?

Could you have spared me the discovery? The abuse of its gasping torment. A final gift rescinded, snatched away... I feel it between ribs. Screaming, forcing me to relive your passing over and over, achingly aware of the wounding irony. Without you I cannot know peace. I cannot rest. I am pain's burning tribute, collapsing into ash only to be built again and again...Re-lit by embers whispering your name, your loss.

I was forced to watch you leave, shaking fingers clinging to my own. Am I soon to know the hand that stole you? As intimately as I did yours? How I curse it so, long to be vindicated by anger, salved with revenge. I seek it to no avail. This assailant that robbed me whole. Thief immeasurable.

What holy crusade could justify this wanton bloodshed?

My love for you is the only trace I will leave.

Nothing of this earth to follow.

I will be free to be yours again.

Under our pear tree.

Let the syrup run down my chin.

Bathed in that carefree love of old.

The amber light of its sweet honey.

The heaven of your caress held.

Is that where I will find it again?