Oh my I miss you. I’m here on my back again, laying in the same tall grass and watching the same stars cycle overhead, my eyes following blinking lights across the sky, my mind traveling faster than my feet ever will.

It’s been forty long years. Our house is the same, I left it just as you did darling. It’s quieter, and lonelier, I can’t deny.

I think of when we were first married, when the you posed a question of loyalty, half turned to the kitchen window and waving a spatula for emphasis. You asked me if I thought of you while I was away, if you were ever and always in my thoughts. I caught you around the waist, the morning sun catching all your hairs in a dance of flame and shimmer, I showered endearments and playful tones of love.

Our cabin, my cabin you made ours, every quilt and ornament and decoration and corner a piece of your eye and mind.

Our little one, who was so close yet never was. I hated myself then, hated myself for you, hated the weak blood and poor genetics I had dared to contribute to you, hated the mortality of former generations that kept her from being yours.

You would laugh at me now darling, an old man talking to flowers and dustballs and hummingbirds. Bartholomew is an old man as well, we two sputter and hiss at each other, me with my clumsy feet and him with his claws, the house our rivaled respected domain, keeping peace only in the memory of you. He doesn’t let me near your reading robe, many nights I’ve told myself I couldn’t bear the sight of it, and many nights his eyes have warned me that I had better. I’m glad he’s there, fighting for your memory when I don’t have the strength.

It won’t be long now, you can tell the Old Man to keep his eyes off you, I’ll be there soon. He gave you to me once, maybe he’ll be kind enough to do it again. I rejoice at the pains in the knees, I laugh at the hanging in my chest. It means I’m coming to you darling, it means I’m coming home.