Laura Barnett

People bear loneliness every day. They think they won't be able to, that they won't survive, but somehow one second slips into another, becomes an hour, a day, a week, and they are still living. They are still alone, even in the middle of a crowd of people. Even with a partner, a child.

That's what marriage is, isn't it? Taking the rough with the smooth. At least, that's what it should be.

You walked into my life when I was nineteen years old. You were the only man I ever loved - the only man I ever hope to love. You took everything we did together, everything we were to each other, and scorched it to nothing: left it a cloud of ash.