Too Much for a Heart to Hold

Flowers from the garden on the kitchen windowsill....

my view  this evening  when I'm washing up..

the moon last night ...swimming in the bird bath.

So it's true then.

Or so they tell me.

You have gone.

Forever.

No coming back.

I know it.

Because you aren't here.

So now I have to let my heart know it.

From the very beginning when 

the consultant said,

'It is Semantic Dementia'

I didn't believe it.

Not really 

not that you would  die

not soon anyway

not for a long 

undefined length of  time

only in some vague 

future. 

But we still had now

and now 

and now.

The hell of now.

Not knowing it would be 

beyond hell

 in the end.

But  that now is over.

Not vague any more.

Not just 2 years over.

Today I shock myself

did I really not believe it?

Living deep in the onslaught 

 of all those years

but not really believing it.

Too much for a heart to hold.

And still now

I live in a kind of hope

I don't know what for...

that if I still wear your ring

still  wrap myself in this illusion, 

this fantasy

that it could  be like it was,

before you were ill

even though that 

wasn't  exactly a bed of roses.

That if I still

 grieve for what we can never have now,

that somehow

  it will protect me 

from the raw

gut twisting 

truth.

You have gone 

and even if you were here 

it would not be good.

For you 

or me.

Too much to digest 

in one great eight year

 gulp.

 So like the dreaded goat's milk kefir 

which

I disguise with banana,

I can remember 

and forget 

in equal portions

till I get more accustomed 

to the taste 

of the

 final

 truth.