Birthday Card

3/07 (edited 11/29)

You do not belong in this world,
as I sit and think, and ponder on the
means in which you might have lived -
the world would get too full if everyone
we loved could stay alive.

You were not made for this life, and even
thinking when and where and how
you would live now is in vain because
there's always something I'll forget to add together -

You will now forever be past tense to us,
even though we carry you in picture frames,
in letters, in that card I got form you
on my birthday the year after you died -

It said "Return to Sender" because you didn't
write my address correctly, and your parents
waited until my next birthday
to give your card to me,

"Forever Loving You," spoke from inside
with a force like timeless fire, flowing from
the pen with which you wrote,
your handwriting not yet shaky from the illness
that took you away from your words.

I smile at all the smiling stickers with which
you decorated the envelope, and how you knew
they would make me laugh, as they did -
I tucked the card inside your Bible,

Your old study Bible full of all your other
notes and thoughts - and I take the card out, still,
every now and then, and stare at the 20 dollar bill
you had put inside for me -

knowing you touched it last, and so afraid of letting it go,
and losing part of you all over again.