Barefoot Under the Cherry Tree

Sometimes, the only way to deal is to let it out in written words.  And to remember the good places you've been.

Barefoot Under the Cherry Tree

I was five states away from you in more ways than one,

Barefoot and under a cherry tree,

Unaware I was already

Teaching myself to compassionately disengage,

When the realization came to me

That your chronic progressive disease

Had progressed enough to leave no doubt

That I had taken on your weakness when I took you;

That I am in it and it is a part of me and who I am, it is mine

Till death do us part,

And I'm not sure I believe that even then

I will ever exist in any form again without

This heavy knowledge I learned from you;

That it lives in the present with us,

Evolving like a third person;

That when you asked me, "Are you sure?"

That I hesitated only a moment and

That hindsight will always make me wish

I had said, "I cannot answer that because I don't know;"

That I will always resent myself for my naiveté

And you for the cost of staying;

That I imagine your disease outlining you in a sickly yellow,

Always between us, wrapping you like a sickly bright yellow gift,

Protecting your most broken part.