so this is what it means to be human
knowing that not all stories of pain and love
end with the happy,
that sometimes
this point of raw knowing –
that i’m not whole without you
that i need you to breathe
more than i need myself to breathe –

is its own end.

grief comes
when i search for the guidebook
that says how to be here
without aiming for an impossible there
and when the only place i find it
is in you.