ad astra per aspera

Body, a sheet of newsprint on the fire
Levitating a numb minute in the updraft
Over the scalding, red topography
That will put her heart out like an only eye.


I’ve felt like that piece of newsprint these past few days, stuck in that suspension above the hot biting grief. 
His memorial is set for the one year anniversary of his death.  It’s hard to put out there, to expose the grief and ask for others to come where I am and celebrate his life.  It’s hard to be vulnerable, I want to run the track of my old habits, my brain wants to find refuge in the shortcomings (real or not) of others.  I push the track away, I try to find another, I try to find the energy again, I try, I’m here, I’m here.  He’s not.  He’s gone, for now and ever.  What lives on is the love inside me, that will always be inside me for him. 
He could be such an ass and he could make me laugh like no one else.  We were supposed to keep growing together, now I have to do it alone.  
It’s been a bit over 8 months since he died in that ambulance on that highway in Texas, covered in the blanket that covers me now in my sleep, with his urn of ashes next to me on the nightstand.  I don’t think it’s gotten easier, mostly just different.  
I can’t sleep the last few nights, I’m back to searching the tv, the ipod, the computer for fucking something.  I won’t find it.  
I was going to knit dishcloths for gifts this year, like I did last year.  But my fingers don’t want to, they don’t want to reproduce the knitting frenzy of last year, the packages sent in the mail.  I don’t have the energy/interest in even explaining that I’m not sending anything out, that I don’t expect anything.    
We (Magnus and I, instead of you and I) put the tree up the other night, finished decorating it last night.  The cranes we folded, some of the decorations of Chris’ childhood, his boyish face surrounded by a paper bell.  
It breaks me into pieces, it scoops me out.
I look at the pictures of Christmas from 2 years ago.  Last Christmas was so horrible, I re-read my entry on here about it the other day and it was awful, just awful.
I’m ready for a blanket of snow.