In Peace

I am lying on the bed I bought after you asked me to leave.

Covering up with the only blanket I took, that damn pooh comforter. 

It was that or the ruffled thing lying on the bed we shared, I never like anyway.

I’m wearing the one thing of yours I took when I left, your shirt.

Not the nightshirt you wore to bed but, the blue one you wore that looked like mine.

No, I didn’t take it by accident I knew it was yours; the smell of your cologne was so thick I could have cut it with a knife.

Years have gone by and I have washed it dozens of times but, I still smell you on it.

I smell the night we lie in bed fully dressed exhausted from the trip with your parents we were too tired to undress.

I smell the day we went to the ballgame and you held my hand so tight my fingers were blue.  Yeah, I was afraid to let go of you too.

I was afraid if I let go you would leave and never return after all I never understood why you loved me anyway.

I could never see that man you looked at when I looked in the mirror.

I saw only me, the disgruntled angry man who longed to find the peace you so graciously offered me.  I just couldn’t seem to touch it myself.

We were so close and yet so far away at least in my mind.

We made those three heavenly angels I will never forget.

Each little giggle I hear in my head reminds me of you.

Each little twinkle in their eyes reminds me of the day I met you.

Each touch of our daughter’s soft hands on my cheek reminds me of you.

Each time I hear her call me Daddy, I hear you.

Each time I hear the boy’s laugh I hear your voice.

Within each every minute of my time with them, I can still feel like I belong.

It is of course hard to forget the marriage we once shared.  Our love, our breathes together.

The way you pushed my face away from yours as I slept breathing hard into you. 

Taking each smell and sense of security you brought to me inside with each breath.

The peace it brought to my sleep I can never explain.

For in my mind as you already know the war rages on. 

But, with you and the kids in peace I belong.