1...
2...
3...
they continue
4...
5...
6...
still more
7...
8...
9...
not quite done because at this moment the final number is
10...
Easy counting
if you're a toddler and don't know
that each one is a minute and a lifetime
all at the same time.
Two hundred and forty hours of birthdays.
14,400 minutes acknowledging a milestone.
864,000 seconds celebrating without him.
And some of that,
mercifully,
I spent sleeping.
Please let me wake up and have it be over or maybe let it last forever
in pregnant expectation of what could be
Each one
Empty and full.
The glass is both.
It's a steady stare at all that's firmly in the past, but also a bright red arrow pointing to what is still in my
soul.
Joy and pain living together
like opposites that attract
and refuse to be pulled apart.
Never completely one thing or another
Always some mix of what's gone and what remains
A decade of birthdays with me
and not him.
Written by Anne Luck-Deak, 3/8/2021
