If we'd had a choice
06/04/2010 05:17 p.m.


June 4 arrives every year,
Right on schedule
As if it had a place
Among other days.

This year the tears visit.

This year he would have been 27.

This year, the nausea visits too.

I’ve always thought
The echo would fade over time.
I know the feelings I’m having,
They’re just a story about
Finding my boy’s empty shell,
The horror that felt like an abduction.
Where did he go
That his little body could not follow?
Where was he taken
That I would no longer hear him giggle,
Or feel his hand grasp mine,
Or know his hungry lips upon my breast?
What cruel joke had been played
That those sweet lips would never
Ever
Smile again?

I know the story by heart,
And most years,
June 4 replays it.
And while I could be almost certain
The details have more or less skewed themselves
Over these 27 years,
There is no version of it
That has a different ending
Than walking into that nightmare.

And yet my imagination insists –
Wondering what he would look like,
Who he would love,
Who his own children would be,
And how my own path might have been swayed
If he’d remained.
As if we had a choice.

I am currently: stuck in that vortex
Listening to: surreality