Us, a poem

The Versions of Us

It started in 2013,

when you came into my life

and I found a love

I had never known before.

Then there were three.

Not officially.

Not yet.

Just a man, a woman,

and a boy learning

how to become a family.

We stumbled through it—

the blending,

the baggage,

the hard days,

the ridiculous ones,

the belly laughs,

the ordinary moments

that somehow became our life.

Then came 2017.

Outside,

in our favorite place,

we stood together

and made it official.

One plus two became three.

We poured sand together,

each grain representing

the pieces of us

becoming something

that couldn’t be separated again.

We promised forever.

Through sickness and health.

For better and worse.

Until death do us part.

We didn’t know

how much those words

would eventually mean.

Because in 2026,

Ryan is gone.

And somehow,

when he left,

he took pieces of us with him.

Not our love.

Not the years.

Not the memories.

But the versions of us

that existed because he was here.

The three of us.

The family we were.

The life we knew.

Now we sit beside each other

and sometimes there are no words.

We stare.

We breathe.

We try to talk

through a grief

so deep it feels like

someone burned a hole

straight through us.

And at night

when everything is quiet,

my mind asks questions

I never thought I’d have to ask.

What’s next?

Can we make it?

Can love survive

when life changes this much?

Has our love changed?

Is it still enough?

And underneath every question

is the one I’m almost afraid to say:

I don’t want to lose you next.

I don’t know what happens

to a marriage

after something like this.

I don’t know how we become

the two of us

when for so long

we were three.

I don’t know how to build

a life that doesn’t look

like the one we lost.

But I know this:

I am still here.

And you are still here.

And somewhere beneath

all this grief,

beneath the fear

and the questions

and the versions of us

that died with him,

there is still love.

Maybe we don’t have to find

the old us again.

Maybe we have to learn

who we are now.

Maybe forever

doesn’t mean nothing changes.

Maybe forever means

we keep finding each other

when everything does.

And I hope

with everything I have left,

we find our way

back to each other.

Not to who we were.

But to who we can become—

together.