Helena's Diary
/The distance between us
meshed well with the sight
of recounting our first kiss
in her parent’s presence.
The silence in the present spoke
of its will for me to know.
But I questioned what I knew.
The second before my heart
caught wind of Helena’s crash,
I’d planned on asking
her to marry me.
But now, she can’t even hear me.
I spent weeks by her side
as she healed on a hospital bed.
I buried my head in folded prayer hands.
God heard me because I listened to myself.
I made an urgent plea before Thanksgiving.
Helena left her journal open.
I did what I shouldn’t have.
I went through and examined the pages.
I read her entries from her journal.
Helena loved me more than I imagined.
Her insecurities spread over the text like teardrops.
She didn’t know how to tell me
that our lives would change in nine months.
And she counted the cost of a new stroller.
I told her folks about falling in love with their daughter.
And that we’d been through things, Helena and me.
One night, after I said something stupid,
she said something stupid, too.
She left only to return the next day
as we agreed to disagree without losing
sight of what we’d been fighting
for behind closed doors.
I made her a candlelit dinner,
and she fucked me on the kitchen table.
As I closed the diary, Helena pushed
herself upright, gasped, and moved her hair out of her eyes.
She stretched and then shifted her focus to me
and smiled as she motioned me closer.
We embraced on Christmas Day.
By Andy Cooper
From: United States
Website: https://drinkcoffeewrite.online/
Twitter: AC0040