Why had he come?

It would never be the same without her.

Her ghost shadows him at every turn.

His mind never resting,

grasping,

wondering,

where is she now?

It doesn't matter, after all, does it?

She is with him.

He was always there these days,

in her dreams,

hidden behind her eyes. 

Waiting quietly for the still moments,

the unsuspecting moments when suddenly 

he was all she could see or smell or hear.

The memory of him was slowly consuming her.

She had left him.

But he had not left her.

On his wanderings he could not help his mind dissecting everything they had been.

He should have known.

There were times he wondered who she dressed for?

She would take such care to make herself beautiful, 

yet she never cared what he thought.

On the heels of the bitter winter that came and settled itself,

burrowing deep into the surrounding forest,

came a certainty, 

like a creeping ice that slowly spread through his chest,

that held him in a tightening vice, 

and that he longed so badly to ignore.

She would not be coming home.

She cannot think about it,

his face when he came upon them together.

The brutal anguish like a keen blade under her skin.

He took what solace he could find,

spending long desolate hours walking the fields,

sitting in the church,

letting the music there transport his very soul 

to such magnificent heights, where all sorrow fled 

his heart and mind.

But each time, upon opening his eyes

his ruined heart was cleaved in two again at his remembering.