Phoenix

I take his hand as he reaches for mine, in sync, harmonious with a being I never thought I would be close to again.

The days are long and painful.

I remember hurt, terribly overwhelming, a sea of anguish and clear memories that slip through my hands, an intense despair. But I remember, too, the beauty and compassion I've witnessed—rare but there, existing on the fine line of unseen but felt—thus I reject the despair, not wanting to lose the dawn ever again.

The past is fragile, wisps of smoke, and I had come to realize that I do not have to let it define me, I am who I choose to be. I am who I want know and value.

I can love who I want to love—my family, my friends, my son, him, and myself.

He and I can make it, pull it through together, weaving our own journey at last, without fear of control and premature death; we can be more than what we were, what we had become, and who we are now.

If the earth and sky can meet, every single night and day, at the end of the world, greeting light and dark, life and death, new and old, then so can we.