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Puzzle piece

Anonymous, 2024

My life shattered into a million pieces, the day you died.

Like a brand new puzzle you dumped on the kitchen table; pieces everywhere.

Have you ever tried putting a puzzle together with gloves on? Blindfolded?

As the months would pass, I would start to have clusters of pieces connected.

Almost able to see my life again.

My life with you still in it.

My life before you took your last breath.

CRASH. BAM. BOOM.

A holiday.

A birthday.

A random Tuesday.

The days I missed you a little extra.

My little clusters would shatter again.

I was no longer able to see my old life again.

The puzzle pieces were scattered on the table.

How do I get back to my old life?

Can I?

I was trying to piece together something that will never be the same.

I will always be missing one piece to my puzzle; to my life.

You.

I must take those millions of pieces and start something new.

The gloves come off.

The blindfold is lifted.

I needed to start living my life without you.

We will not be creating memories.

You are now a memory.

My life looks different now.

I put the puzzle back in the box and open a new one.

The pieces are cut the same way.

They fit together the same way.

The clusters start to connect.

This isn’t the puzzle I wanted to put together.

But this is my life now.

This puzzle is for you to see.

To be proud of.

RIP Dad. Forever missed.

Just Asking

by Charlotte Heotis, edited by PM Heotis, 2024

Who set this universe in motion
Filled the seas and the ocean
Mounted up the lofty hills
Then bathed them with cascading rills
Laid out vast arid places
Too, desolate for human races
And capped it all with one great dome
With clouds and stars to roam
A sun to warm and brighten all
Then rotated—the night to fall
Beneath a place we call home
With winds that sometimes gently blow
The good the bad both ebb and flow
What purpose this we’d love to know
Is it a figment, but of time
Or a losing-finding of the mind