Quiet

It is when the quiet seeps in, with fingers that grope and cling, that the grief suddenly washes over me in a tidal wave of muffled sobs and a sense of loss so acute that my chest caves in, digging my jagged, fractured ribs into my fragile, sluggishly beating heart. Panic sets in on the fringes of my breaking mind – sudden, potent, and enough to leave me gasping into my pillow as my hand clutches at my closing throat. She is gone. It is a realization that strikes me like lightning strikes a lonely, large oak in the midst of a poignantly empty clearing. She is gone. I feel the shattered shards of my heart dig into the surrounding tissue as I ask over and over again, “why, God, why?” I receive no answer, and I try to curb my selfishness with happy memories of my lost love. God isn’t at fault, I tell myself as I try desperately to block out the sound of her rasping last breaths. They penetrate my ears, a memory that time will never dull. Her gasps match mine, now, and I sob in regret.