The Sledge Hammer

I've had a bad couple of nights, when it's around 2 am or so when the realization hits me yet again that this is how it really is, and that no amount of wishing or hoping or begging will ever change that. In the darkness and stillness of that hour I wish and hope and beg into the void, anyway, in an effort to dispel the hopeless, helpless, powerless despair over never seeing her face or hearing her voice again.

This "sudden" realization has occurred thousands of times since the end of May, and yet each time it hits like a fresh wound, inexplicably arriving as a "new" revelation slamming into my body and soul like a sledge hammer, something that at this point I should expect be prepared for.

But I don't, and I am not.