ANNA M ERICKSON

 Where Does The Love Go?

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 And so, I took my broken heart to church 
Lost in your echoes to the sound of the organ playing 
I cried,
I  cried for the “what if”s
For the life we would have had 
For the new me I’d have to become to survive without you 
And the consequential death of the “me” I’d known up until this point 

10 months later, and our love letters are still annexed to my frame 
I feel them with me always, despite banishing them 
Tucked in the shadows of my desk 
Today, I stopped denying it 

I took them for a drive 

Clutching them in my hands 
I begin in kneel 
On our pages of devotion, I let the the dust mix with tears and watched them turn into the perfect picture us 
Dead and drowned but somehow no one notices 

I cry all alone 
I think, as much as two people falling in love brings people together due to the love, the experience of falling in love at the same time as the other person is also a bonding experience 
Maybe you are the only one who understands how I feel right now
But you’re gone
Not dead, just gone 
Living outside of my world and the one we had created together 

So, I ask God, to please take these back — the love letters and the ring you had bought for me
I say “thank you” and “thank you” and “thank you” again.
Thank you for this experience God, but I need you to take it back now 
I am living in the torture of this experience as my sky everyday 
I can’t do it anymore God, please lift this from me
It’s crushing me
Please, just do this for me

Please give me another sky 

As I exit, I bath our love in holy water;
Sprinkling it over the belongings that made “us.”

Closing the church door, finally a sign. 

As I head to the car, heaven begins to cry.