He is stumbling around like a mad man. I hope he doesn’t break any of the glasses he might startle her and then my world will be black again. She is getting up now, her black skirt getting stuck as she walks the hallways.  I see her heart pounding it’s like a hammer against her chest she hears him but she doesn’t know where he is. She grabs for the light, the one we had bought together. I know what she wants to do her adrenaline floods my soul. She walks quicker her heart pounding faster as she nears the kitchen. No don’t-the candle stick hits the floor and breaks along with my heart as I watch her fall in love with the stranger at the sink.

            When you’re dead time is no longer time an instant can feel like a thousand years and you have to be careful not to blink because when you open your tired eyes years may have gone by. That’s how I missed it all. I hadn’t slept in days I went to rest my eyes and when I opened them again there she was. When I first saw her I thought she had come to live with me she looked so angelic. But when I reached to hold her I then realized she was still warm with life.  Her dress is whiter then snow and her eyes are the most beautiful I have ever seen. She would put the most beautiful of women to shame. But what’s going on? Why is there music and people watching? I’m too scared to turn around I’m too afraid to see what waits at the other side.  But I must. There he is, standing at the end of the aisle looking at her the way I do. Why does he have to look at her like that he has no right she is mine she is my wife my love he can’t look at her that way! Why isn’t anyone saying anything? Why is she saying she loves him her heart is still mine I can hear my name in her I can hear her longing for me to be there? Why is she lying to everyone? I can’t watch I can’t look at this I can’t let her marry another man while I sit here and do nothing.  I have to close my eyes I have to leave her and let her be happy.  My world is going dark and everyone’s words begin to blend as I fall into a sleepless rest.

            My eyes have been open for years now, I have watched her through everything, doing my best not to let a single tear fall, for if I do I am afraid it may show up as a puddle on a road somewhere or drop in the rain and it might break her. I’ve watched as she has kissed him as he has held her and as they have moved out of the very house we had bought together, just her and I. He is no sailor he is a lawyer smarter than any man I have ever met and has more money than I could have ever made. They are sitting on a sofa in front of a fire. He holds her and I can feel how much he loves her but she is still holding onto me. He knows this and he wants her to let go he wants her to be happy again but deep down inside of him he knows she will never be his. She may have his ring on her finger but that doesn’t make her his because I still have her heart and that is something he will never have.  My soul is shivering as I hear him talk to her. He wants to have a baby, he thinks it would be good for her. She doesn’t disagree and so they have a baby. I watched her as her belly got bigger I could feel the new life inside of her warmer than any fire I have ever been near, bursting with life.  In secret every morning she would go to the shore and sit in the sand and weep, her tears were saltier then the ocean water and she cries louder than the sea circling in the sky.  I watched as she gave birth to him, how she wouldn’t hold him for the first whole day of his life. And now as I stand next to her as she watches that little boy cry in his cold little basket in his cold little room all I want to do is take him as my own and hold him and tell him his mother does love him but she is too scared to let go.  Even as a baby he can feel his mother’s sadness, her cold and broken soul. And that is why he cries and never stops.  I watch as she leaves the room, I wish I could whisper in her ear how much I love her how much I want to hold her and the baby but I cannot.  She is gone now and the baby is watching the door, I think he sees me but I am not sure.  So I stick my hand out and he grasps it. How am I feeling the warmth of a person? How can this be? Should I speak to him? I think he can hear me, he is cooing at my every word. The more I talk the warmer his room gets and soon he is asleep. His little eyes are closed and his hands are clenched in fists as he sleeps. I have fallen in love with her baby and I am still in love with her. Maybe it is time I get some sleep again.

            What was that sound? My heart is pounding it’s about to burst out of my chest.  Something is wrong; I can feel it in the air. The sky is gray and the air all around me is thick. It’s suffocating me, I can’t breathe but I have to run on.  Why is the baby on the shore? Why is he screaming? What’s going on? I can’t feel him, all I feel is cold, I can’t turn around. No! As the waves splash along the shore I can see her struggling to walk on. No! My heart is pounding fast! Why can’t I stop this? Her white blouse is getting mangled in the thick air as she walks into the waves. The baby’s screaming is silenced, the seagulls have stopped screeching the world has stopped and as her footprints are washed off the pale yellow sand by the ocean’s tide I can feel her warmth next to me.