six months

It's spring now,
again.
I am hollowed
The part of me
that trusted
you, that leaned
and let its roots, branches grow
into you
is broken off
and I am left
bereft. Hollow.
I feel the edges
with my fingers
trying to make sense.

Hollow me out
I face the day
it seems emptier now
than the one months ago.
When
you dug yourself out, up.

I had been so rooted through
that I spent six months
expecting you
all moments.
Your car would be outside
you'd show up at school
Oh God.
I wanted
I waited
all these unfulfilled hopes
I just didn't think
it could really happen
this way

Love,
I thought,
I think still, despite all
Should not end.

But here I am
on the edge of this hole
now dry, crumbling

still waiting
somehow
for your absence to go.

Simultaneously
I hold
my heart and whisper
"Don't hide. Don't protect.
Let it hurt long and hard as it needs,
(longer, it seems, than many will expect)
But- Dear God- keep refusing
to resurrect those old old walls-

that took decades
and His kindness
to dismantle.

To do this
we must trust
that, in this hole-ripping world,
we
are not
our greatest protector.

The martyrs of old offered
themselves freely
They did so
as the Beloved
of God

The answer to the violence
that can (and does) rip through us
is protection, after all
Just not the one
we think.

I must remember- vulnerability
is not just about exposure
or sacrifice. No.

in the end
This is about
laying down our weapons,
small and fragile,
Then running
to the Strong Tower