Cool Mornings In Dust

This morning I paused to give reflection to him.
I couldn't erase him from my mind.
A year. A year's worth of memories and moments, closeness and love. A year that I had very much lost.
I couldn't speak or look at him. And the reasons for this were clear. I had been in too deep. I was in no place to be kind to him, let alone pursue any kind of friendship with him. I saw clearly now what I had not seen before. Before when my vision was clouded with denial. I saw that I could not reasonably communicate with him in any manner.
And yet I missed him.
It was normal, to miss someone as important and close to you as that, someone you knew you would never get back, ever. But the pain was gone. The crushing pain that I would be alone, and that he would not, the pain that I had lost something so dear, that pain was gone. This feeling now was more like an inkling of what was.
I could not hope for January to come any sooner than I now did.
I had been in too deep, and there was no halfway for us.
What had been there for me was too strong a memory to disgrace, too strong a connection to re-make in the image of friendship.
I couldn't do it.
But these cool fall mornings were too familiar as I wondered at how things could be different. They couldn't, but my heart still beat softly as I looked on out the window, a breeze on my face as I watched the leaves.
My life had changed because it had to. That was not who I was anymore. To me, that was bizarre. How could I have such a dramatically different identity? How could I feel so changed, and how could it be so differently so quickly, with no progression?
I wanted to know that I was ok, and that my internal thermometer wasn't giving me a delusion of calm and collectedness.
I wanted to know that I could love again.