The silence between us feels like a physical manifestation. An actual wall of no-speak.

On the one hand, it is a relief to not have to talk … on the other, I don’t feel that I can touch either. In giving up on verbal discourse, I am also losing the conversation of contact. No hugs or touches – or at least, I don’t think there can be.

So I wonder, am I selfish in that I still touch him. That holding him breaks my heart, because I do not want to separate – I think that holding him breaks his heart, even while he craves being held too.

Just because I cannot see how we can live together any longer doesn’t mean that I don’t ache for this man that I have loved and do love with an intensity that burns.

I cry with the pain of it.

I do hold him. And I cry. I think, also, that he is so close to tears.

How has it come to this?