Round Ten

(written last night, as sleep escaped me)

The space between our bodies in the bed has been 

an ebb and flow 

of human tide over the years.

In the beginning, us alone.

Together.

Inseparable.

Then waves of little humans, our offspring, moved us apart

in the form of infants needing to be fed.

Fighting for the space between us.

Greedy and hungry.

Toddlers washed in next escaping nightmares that 

found a way into the peaceful realm of their slumber.

They have ebbed their way out of our space now as teens--

only returning to report in after completing their 

nightly adventures and shenanigans.

We are returning once again to empty space between us

as the human tide rolls out,

and away,

and grows,

and swells,

into the independence of our children.

As he lays beside me, his breathing is as familiar as my own.

I don my nightshirt of choice lately-

an oversize Superman tee-

we have an abundance of them in our house right now.

They represent power and strength in this fight with cancer.

He drapes his arm across my back.

A spot where it has rested so often

that sometimes I forget where he ends

and I begin again.

His breathing beside me slows to even.

Sleep has taken him.

Round Ten.

Huntsman Cancer Institute.

Labs.  Shelley.  Breakfast.  Infusion Room.

8 hours dedicated to a constant drip of hope,

entering his body, pumping through his veins.

We have our routine down.

We flow through our days up there with a rhythm of our own.

In and out of rooms and appointments and chemo chairs.

Fluid as the sea.

Sleep escapes my tired soul tonight.

Some days, 

I feel ancient, the skin I'm in tired and old.

Some days, 

I feel powerful, ready to face and conquer my 

darkest fears.

And these?  They are among my darkest.

Kyle, ever steadfast beside me, gives me strength--

ALWAYS the life breath of calm into my troubled heart.

And so, on this, another eve of the fight of our lives...

...he sleeps.

I lay restless.

Breathing in and out toward a new dawn.

Round Ten.