morning woke me, dream of your taste on my tongue your scent still lingering, twenty years later

I said your name out loud into the nothing, a question forever unanswered

out into cold waking world, into darkness of snowy morning

a murder of crows cackling, dark against the dull slate sky, it was the Ides of March

a woman stumbling off snow covered sidewalks, black hooded trench coat, a harbinger

she stared at me from above a red scarf covered face, her eyes sunken, told a sad story

she swaggered away looking hungry, high, and freezing

I recognized in her the same demons who once possessed you all those years ago

my hopes of a lifetime together, led to slaughter one by one

the child whose life I had taken, lost forever, you may never even know

I drank in more bitterness that day than herbs grown, tinctures prepared from my own garden

I shed more tears those weeks than cells gathering in my Womb

the time you spent in the streets, fighting for your life sent a part of me dying

I felt the atrophy of my young heart, forever devoid of the capacity to love again so completely

my trust in others faded, my trust in love itself, vanished

I wonder if you were my one, my only chance at real love?

The first cut is the deepest, they say

as I drove away I whispered a prayer for her for the shell of you back then,

I sent you compassion backward in time to embrace you in your darkest moments

I sent myself love into those corners of wretched hell born heartbreak

the drugs you ingested, crossed your threshold, entered your bloodstream,

and depleted both of our souls for a lifetime