These dead bones.

I can't find anything that speaks to me these days. Not the sun upon my skin, not the thought of summer fast approaching nor my soon return home. Not even the disappointment of being given up on - being left out in the cold - has sparked any sign of life within. 

Perhaps it's the latter that has hardened me, so I can no longer feel the warning signs of spring the way that I once could. I cannot be moved by the soft and lovely revelations of the Earth. I see them all, and I can recognize how my heart should be melting with the last remains of snow. Still nothing.

All I can think of is the way his heart beat with my head on his chest, and the way it compares to the pounding in my head these days. Life and vivacity now replaced with a droning, empty sound. 

I keep telling myself I need to take the pictures off the wall. I'm leaving soon - I need to pack the memories away. But I can't bring myself to do it. They're the only thing that's bright around this prison cell; holding me to my sanity by not letting the blankness of the room take over.

I guess, if I am afraid of anything, it is that I will be nothing: forever remaining a bare page. I fear that when all the accessories of life are stripped from me, I will be empty handed; becoming only the uniform, off-white walls that lie beneath these photographs. 

It occurs to me that this deep hollowness in me, that even spring cannot seem to shake this year, is only the beginning. And, oh, how that sends shivers up my spine. (And not the kind you gave me.)

S. 

{Photo: Ann He Photography}