He died the day before my second birth,
and sorrow pulled me from the earth.
The stars went cold, the sky turned black,
the world I knew would not come back.

We were two men who loved so deep
no words could hold what we could keep.
No language made for human breath
could measure us, not even death.

His laugh had lived inside my bones,
inside our house, our calls, our tones.
A touch, a glance, a quiet room—
and every corner learned to bloom.

Then suddenly the light was gone,
and I could not imagine dawn.
That night I stood so close to leaving,
too tired for living, too full of grieving.

The dark spoke softly: come with him,
while every hope grew faint and dim.
And love, when torn apart this way,
can make the soul refuse to stay.

But morning came through shattered blinds,
with trembling hands and fragile signs.
And though I wished to disappear,
some stubborn pulse still kept me here.

So maybe that first dawn alone
became the second time that I was born—
not into joy or sweet release,
but into learning grief can breathe.

The pain remains. It always will.
It waits beside me, calm and still.
I do not love the ache I bear,
but part of him still lingers there.

For grief is just love’s shadow cast,
the proof that something rare has passed.
And every tear my heart has known
reminds me I was not alone.

Because the pain, though sharp and true,
is smaller than the love we knew.
And if I carry hurt each day,
it means his love still found a way.

So I endure, and still survive,
with all he left me still alive.
Two men who loved beyond compare—
one gone from sight,
one keeping him there.