Today marks a threshold that I never thought I would have to pass. 64, without you here. Soon it will be 27, without your hands to hold. Your freckles lit up my life. Your hands framed my face. Your embrace mended all the broken pieces of my shattered mind’s thought processes. Together we could take on the world. Now, I can barely win the pathetic battle against the bed sheets. 26. My body shows scarring of a damaged heart and ragged mind that long forgot what health and habit were supposed to look like. Instead, I pop pills for agony and for outer beauty to cover the blackness that has been trapped within for the fastest six months past. Some would say long but I say fast. Not because of the ease of sorrow but rather the blink of time felt since your disappearance. 64. Mocking us. I close my eyes, knowing within hours wake, I’ll be greeted by my racing heart and bated breath, longing for your comfort after terror. 26. Too young to know better, too old for naïveté. Old enough to feel the red hot poker, young enough to feel the sting of too long an absence. Can I convince the universe to take me instead? Sadly, we all know that answer. Why him? Why now? Why ever? Sadly, we all know that we will never know. 64. Less than the white hairs in your beard, more than the times you got to cradle grandchildren. 26. More than the seconds given to react, less than the minutes it took me to come to your side. Lifetimes can be counted in seconds and mine is wrapped in the few that it took him to say “No, he didn’t make it.”