Autumn

The smell of burning leaves brought back odd, jumbled memories of Autumn.

No one blamed me of course. You're lucky to be alive, they told me.

But I was ashamed by the insensate workings of random chance.

I've heard it said that losing a loved one is like losing a limb. It isn't.

It took less than a second for the truck to shear off the front of the car. Over an hour to cut us from the wreckage. My grief stretches interminably ahead.

Studying his photograph the pain was palpable like a fist; a gutshot impact that stopped my breath, my heart.

I held on to it, just to feel him, a phantom, like my legs.

I tossed my bottle on the fire unwanted, whisky dregs flared as it broke.

He was my pain. I'd willingly bear it forever.