Pages

For a while now,
     it has seemed
          that your leaving signified
                pages being ripped
                      from the binding of my book.
Leaving a chunk of my chronicle
     missing
          destroyed
               empty
                     almost as if those pages never existed
                           as if we never lived, loved, laughed, or cried
                                  as if our lives and our hands never intertwined
                                  like those two ancient oaks in my grandmother's back yard.

And maybe, that's how it has to be for you.
Maybe that's the way you have learned to live. . .
How the heartache and pain of your past has taught you to survive.

So, you have ripped me out of the pages of your book.
You must feel the way the binding is loose,
The way your story is incomplete. . .
but you carry on, calmly,
nonchalant
And though there will come a day you will miss those pages
I am glad you are happy, now. . .
missing pages and all.

As for me. . .
I realize,
when you left, you did not
violently rip those pages
out of my book --
but rather
gently forced me
to start another chapter.

Thank you, for that.