No other way.

The second best poem I ever wrote... the first was for you, this is for you. Even if I don't feel the same as the words in either one anymore. I've moved on.

You—You are the one whose presence wrote its own poems.

I’ve never written so many beautiful words like I have for and about you. You are poetry. My muse. And you are the one I keep writing to—will always write about and to. 

poem after poem like Murph tapping the bookshelf in Interstellar

hoping you'll press your ear to the wood

To hear me say “I love you” through time and space. 

My entire life? Now that you’re gone?

I’ll search for you in airports and parks and cities not my own, and restaurants

And streets I know not their name,

for the sound of your breath between announcements on intercoms,

for your shadow in the line at security at XNA.

And...

After this life, I’ll search for you in universes,

where Halley’s Comet streaks,

too bright, too brief—

and still I’d wait seventy-six years

just to catch its fire again.

I’d wait 76 times 76 looking over and over for you. 

Andrea Gibson once wrote: “There are guardian angel fish

swimming just beyond what we can see.”

And I wonder—

are you one of them now?

Do you circle the edges of my life unseen,

reading every blog post I leave like breadcrumbs,

pretending you aren’t hungry

for the love still burning in me and I wonder if you, too?

I am Gatsby,

arm outstretched across the water,

but the light is only a ripple—

was I a fool, or were you afraid? Or was it both?

What would we be now

if you had chosen grace instead of silence?

Two people fumbling,

or two old souls with canes,

arguing about frozen pizza in the grocery aisle at Target,

Traveling the world,

Traveling the country in an RV with the kids,

taking each other for granted—because the honeymoon never lasts they say, (but I would make sure it lasted forever with you)

but together anyway?

And still—like Meg wrote to Andrea after she passed...

I say to you:

I would have loved you at twenty,

awkward and raw.

I would have loved you at forty,

eyes tired from long nights.

I would have loved you at seventy,

wrinkles as lines of poetry I could memorize.

I would have loved you at one hundred and forty-two,

bones paper-thin,

still burning like a flame that refused to quit.

And I would have loved you enough

to sit beside you and watch paint dry—

to waste hours that weren’t wasted at all,

because they were hours with you. 

I will grieve all the days and years I couldn’t love you. 

Because I still do. 

I always will. 

I always will. 

If there are other worlds,

I’ll walk them barefoot,

palms lifted like lanterns

until one finally meets yours.

And if there is nothing after—

no comets, no wormholes, no guardian angel fish—

then I’ll still love you in every wrinkle of memory,

every poem you pretend not to read,

every night sky where I mistake a star for your face,

smiling, waiting,

as if I had already found you.

I’ll love you for who you were, 

you are, 

who you’ll always be. 

I’ll love you because I know no other way to be. 

https://andreagibson.substack.com/p/andrea-gibson-fiftieth-birthday?fbclid=PARlRTSAMsVTtleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABp3BqwFrbeux-tgUa8hdcbB3iCTxt6N_pTHmDv0Sy_Q5LUeRNfICbbC7oSrM2_aem_QT8UrOVCAi1-EKFYiTyx-A