Merry Christmas, My Love.

It caught me off guard again today.
In the space.
The quiet in-between time.

I wonder how you celebrated Christmas.
I admit. I googled your name.
No grace there.

It’s three years since we’ve spoken a word.
How can you still be so present in my heart?

I tell myself: if you wanted to be in my life, you would be.
I’m not hard to find.
Those words echo our last conversation,
when you asked me how you would find me.

I’m not hard to find - 
for someone who is looking.

Merry Christmas, my love.
I have thought of you often this past year.

Not loudly.
Not with urgency or expectation.
Just in those quiet moments when life softens and memory slips in uninvited.

I’ve lived whole chapters since you.
I’ve grown, stretched, become more myself.
And still, there are parts of me that recognise you instantly,
like a language my heart never forgot how to speak.

I don’t reach out.
Not because I don’t care,
but because I’ve learned the difference
between love and pursuit,
between longing and invitation.

Some connections don’t end, they complete.
They finish their work quietly,
without closure or ceremony,
leaving behind a tenderness that doesn’t ask for more.

So I let you be where you are.
And I stay where I am.
Holding what was real without needing it to return.

If you ever wondered, 
yes, you mattered.
Yes, you still do,
in the way certain songs do,
or places,
or the version of myself I became because of you.

Merry Christmas.
May your life be kind to you.
Mine is teaching me how to be kind to myself.

There's an Ache

There’s an ache that blooms
in the silence of the morning,
when your boys are chasing sunrises
in countries with foreign tongues,
and you can't hold their faces
or trace their tired eyes
with your knowing fingers.
You celebrate them—
but you also grieve.

There’s an ache that lives
in the quiet phone calls,
where your grown child whispers,
"It's not what I thought it would be."
The fairytales crumbled,
and now they sit in the rubble
of real love,
real compromise,
real heartbreak.
And you can’t fix it.

There’s an ache
when you watch your son
run from healing like it's fire,
dousing himself in distractions,
holding up pride
like a cracked shield.
And you know—
you know—
he could be free
if only he’d turn inward
instead of away.

There’s an ache that stings
when you see the light in your daughter
start to flicker—
the result of too many takers,
too many men with hollow promises
and a world that never really saw her.
She gave and gave and gave—
and now she’s learning
the painful art of withholding.

There’s an ache
in holding wisdom
you cannot give away.
You’ve walked these roads,
tasted the bitter fruit,
but they must plant their own gardens,
even if they don't bloom the first spring.
And you—
you must wait.

There’s an ache in becoming—
not just for them,
but for you.
Who are you now,
when your arms are no longer full
of small, warm bodies
who needed you for everything?
There’s space, yes—
but it echoes.

There’s an ache that settles
deep in the bones
when you realise the love you gave
was a mirror for someone else's lack.
You stayed too long,
softened too much,
moulded yourself to fit a space
you were never meant to live in.
And when it ended—
you weren’t just heartbroken,
you were scattered.
Left with a laundry list of healing,
and the slow, sacred work
of finding your way back to you.

And still—
you love.
Through the miles, the pain,
the silence, the strain.
You love in a language
that they may not always hear,
but one day,
they will understand.
And maybe then,
they’ll come home—
not just in body,
but in spirit.

KAB

31/05/2025

 

I Never Wanted to Live Without You

I never wanted to live without you,
to walk through days where your voice is a shadow,
a memory trembling on the edge of silence.
The world feels heavier now,
its colours muted, as though it too
grieves the absence of your light.

I never asked to learn the language of loss,
to speak in sighs and tears,
to write love letters to the stars,
hoping they’ll find you wherever you are.
Your laughter still echoes in the hollow places,
a bittersweet melody I can’t bear to forget.

I never thought I’d carry your absence,
a weight that doesn’t fade with time.
It nestles beside me,
an unwelcome companion,
its presence both ache and solace.

I never wanted this lesson in love’s endurance,
to know that it stretches beyond touch,
beyond breath,
beyond the fragile boundary of this life.
You are here, and not here,
a paradox I hold in trembling hands.

I never wanted to live without you,
but here I am,
stitching the broken pieces of my heart
with threads of your memory.
And though you are gone,
you remain —
a quiet flame,
a whisper of forever
etched into the marrow of my soul.

KAB 8/12/24

I Mourn You

 I mourn you.

In those small moments I wish we could share.

The sun on the water, the tiny child deeply concentrating as he scoots by, the seagull that photo bombs me, the toothless man who sits beside me for conversation, the things we would connect over and wonder at. 

I mourn you 

In the thought of you more than the actual doing.

The good morning darlings, the conversations with passing acquaintances when we are at the coffee shop, the learning a new language together, planning our next holiday.

I mourn you

In the empty spaces you would fill.

The pillows piled on that side of my bed, the person I would show that pretty shell, the body I would snuggle into, the days I would fill and desire shared, truths told, being seen. 

I mourn you

In all that you could be, but are yet, not.

The showing up for yourself and all that you want, in being honest to everyone including yourself, in loving yourself enough to see that I do too, in asking for what you want and settling for nothing less, in knowing yourself and understanding and taking action. 

In a thousand small ways I mourn you. 

KAB 

9/08/20 

When I Am So Full Of Wanting

 

Days like today are full of wanting

I want to roll over in bed and kiss you awake. 

I want to dress in the dark and sit nursing coffees while we watch the sun come up over the ocean 

I want to fall asleep in each other’s arms, spent, from so many hours of pleasure

I want to talk, talk til we have nothing left to say to each other .....whenever that may be

I want to look up and say ‘hey, let me read you this’......because you are right there.

I want to argue with you about the best way to tuck the sheets when we make our bed in the morning 

I want walk into my favourite cafe with you holding my hand

I want my mum to ask ‘What would HE like for his Birthday?’

I want to introduce you and say ‘Meet my Lover’

I want to plan city weekends and midweek country escapes 

I want our mail to read Drs (YOU) and English and our address to be the same 

I want to have 'IN' jokes, and old frustrations and internal maps that know each other’s scars, scabs and tender places

I want us to have a conversation that meanders across the years 

I want to walk into my favourite deli with you and choose the the makings of a picnic, wander down to the beach with our rug and delight in the flavours as we feed each other 

I want to notice as your body ages and the colour of your eyes fade

I want to have our adult children, and their children, visit us and feel happy that we found each other and get to spend our old age happy 

I want you to dream without fear and live your big life with me 

KAB 22/8/20

How Much Grief Can You Hold?

 

How Much Grief Can you Hold

Tell me this

When does it stop?

When will I empty all this grief?

How many tears can a human hold?

Where does it go?

A river, a lake, an ocean?

What empty vessel is large enough for the grief I feel?

When does it stop?

When will it have had its way with me?

Is this hole ever going to be filled?

With something

Anything

Other than grief

Or do I just accept that this is here now

forever

that I'll always feel this way about you?

An aching hole

of missing you

a void

forever unfilled

Is that what I am now?

KAB

25/01/24

Those little things

The hand that finds mine while we wait in the coffee line

The smile that that flits across your face when you find me in the crowd

The way you pull me against you in the middle of the night

even while you sleep

The conversation that ends up in unexpected places

The flight of ideas and creativity

The hair on the back of your hands

The crystal blue of your eyes

The way you say caramel

the smell of your armpit

The 100 songs we share

that can still bring me to tears

The messy handwriting on love notes and cards

that so touch my heart

That look on your face

the one that lets me know you want me

And the sound when your voice breaks.....

Those little things of beauty that I hope I will never forget. 

KAB