rambling pre-write

My head is heavy with the concrete knowledge that my son is gone, a long six feet out of reach, but in my chest, it's like standing at the seashore. If I'm very still, the waves sneak in and steal the sand from beneath my feet till I have to shuffle and catch my balance, remind myself, lose him all over again.

His picture sits on the end table behind me. 8x10, smiling, large as life and smelling like only a fresh-out-of-the-bath baby can, and sometimes, when I'm not thinking and turn too fast, while my feet are sinking into the void of diremembrance, it looks 3-D, like he's really there, and my breath catches somewhere around my belly button and waits to meet my heart as it falls backwards into realization.

He is in everything, everything but his crib and my arms, and they both ache like a warm spring breeze in the mimosa, all acceptance of beauty and emptiness, where the cicadas have forgotten the words. Only the damselflies know, and it's too dry here for them, so far from the pond.

I close my eyes, unsure whether I'm trying to remember or trying to forget, so I do both. Forgetting that he's gone and remembering the presence of his warmth beside me, counting the rises of his chest by the light of a distant moon that raises the tide that washes away the solidity from beneath my feet.