It’s 5:32 am, and I couldn’t bring myself to sleep again for the 5th time this week. There was pain physically and emotionally since the day that brought me to the tide of death. It was just decided that fate wanted to keep me going on the face of reality, even though I lost something heavy along the way of this, and I regress on the surface of the situation every time my body hits the bed. I lost you.

Every direction I chose to undergo, you were the motor of my determination. If I wanted to climb a mountain that is seen as impossible to the general crowd, you would be the will power that would make it worthwhile to try. With you gone from my vision, that mountain only seems far-fetched and more sinister than ever before. On new terrain, you would make it more recreated. Just the sign of something new mixed with my liberal position, that you primarily encourage, gave me a better grasp on the air that would cultivate my memories and aspirations orderly, like recurring cattle on a mid-western pasture. I grow on to the acceptance of never finding current memories in my head that are worth tending, but I still bring myself back to those times of being condescending about the way I live and you being the driving force to these thoughts.

Experiences become more abroad due to your active presence. Adolescence was that time for this ever-growing “new” to be discovered. I treaded with you as I snuck out of the house on those nights in ‘52 with no purpose at all but to be irresponsible. You were there to keep me up when I would pick fights with the men who walked the streets highly intoxicated with minds still at war. They always say to never pick a fight that you know you will lose, and I took that into consideration as you enabled me to run away from drunk fathers that were soliciting in front of bars on main street. And even though you were aching after ten blocks of running and seeing the blurs of streetlights, I ignored your discomfort as it was more apparent that the faces of those men I don’t know began dissolving onto the icy roads. It was an experience that I was lucky to endeavor as I learned to steer on the road of respect. You are once again credited for this.

Most importantly, you were there for my first love. She sat there, and I couldn’t help to stare, and you were facing her, as I was. I was with a couple of college friends of mine at an acquaintance's gathering, as I was celebrating a birthday party for a girl I didn’t even know at the time. Ironically, it was her birthday party, and I actually wanted to get to know her. She couldn’t stop looking back at me, evading all of the questions her mother kept asking her. It became clear that she had the same feelings I had for her, so I chose to go talk to her. You made me feel the stained carpet of her living room, feeling heavier than ever, as I approached her sensational voice that was targeting toward me. Before I knew it, you were directing me to the car that would take her and I to our first date at the cafe that was across the street from the bar on main street. You pressed on the gas pedal on that February evening at the busy hours of the day, where cars screamed and swerved on the roads. You were there to bring me every step closer to her, and I couldn’t have made those steps without you.

As I recollect on my history with you, I didn’t realize how quickly the sleepless nights go, as these memories are touched on so much more visually as I see the darkness meld into something brighter. It most predominantly distracts me from everything after the sweet bite of my early years. Oh, how the intensity of war could change a person like me, as the eye of warfare has overtaken us and stripped you away from me in the bleak of a loud bang. I lie on this hospital cot, circulated with all of these men with similar focuses on loss, who may be on the same state as I am.

For a few minutes, I enjoy the bliss silence of the room. Then, at an instant, nurses dart into the room, as they were trying to remove us from our beds. It took two of them to remove me off of mine, as they threw me on this wheelchair and rolled me out to the back patio, like they have done this past week. I only wait to recover from the loss of you, but I can’t until I can feel my lost soles on the ground again.