Bulletproof for one more day.

And where are you now, now that I need you?
Tears on my pillow wherever you go
I'll cry me a river that leads to your ocean
You never see me fall apart

I open my eyes and feel around for the first hints of the day as they are revealed in the light coming over the edge of the point, flooding slowly through the windows on one side of the room, though the dark still presses furiously, hopelessly against the glass of the patio doors on the other side.

On the inside the first thing my mind does is remember. Every morning begins with a snap and a slow bloom of an ache I can't seem to soothe. I feel my way around the edge of the hole. It flexes with the days. Sometimes it's small and I can avoid it completely. Other times it grows and grows right out to the rim of my life and I get sucked into it, bones and all. Usually it spits me out for I am small and bitter, unsatisfying, incomplete. My fingers start to flutter against my lips, my eyes spill over and Lochlan instinctively pulls me in underneath his chin, my eyes drying up as gratitude replaces grief, as my brain permits me to remember everything before and after, too.

Shhhh, he sleep-talks. He can't surface, he's still at the Midway, standing and watching as I go in circles into the night sky, coming down in front of him, huge smile across my face, music blasting in my ears. I used to be her. I used to live for the lights, for the moment and now I live for the past, for what came before, a fleeting, intense magic of a different sort altogether, a bright flash of light in that dark, a preemptive rescue from a storm I wouldn't see coming for years.

I sigh outwardly. The effort of just standing up, of getting dressed, of smiling. Of being human. It takes a lot and some days I have more energy than others. Some days I can't even handle the early light. Some days I'm so grateful I lived long enough to experience the things that came after. Exquisite pain. Unbridled joy. Love let loose. A circle right back around to the beginning. Another chance, that gift few people ever get and I got it in spades. A house chockful of love, brimming with the kind of sweetness, affection and support most people could only dream of.

Ben is there now too, up because of the fluttering, no doubt. Light-sleeping. On guard, half-aware, half-awake, all ready. He moves in close, pressing into my back, making me into a breakfast sandwich in between them, closing that circle, shutting down any gaps where the light might escape, shining straight through instead of holding. Exhale once more. I feel safe. The ache gets a little smaller, the gratitude grows a little bigger.

There's a little energy now and enough light. It's safe to begin the day.