Sara Preston

"Dear Body - I love you."
Dear Body, I’m sorry.
For all that it put you and I through.
The pain and affliction, the magnitude of the depths, the indescribable torment.
Dear Body, I’m sorry.
For letting it take you to the very threshold of your capabilities, and the brink of your fortitude.
For trying to destroy us.
I don’t know how you coped.
Or managed to function when it made us so weak.
I couldn’t.
Dear Body, I’m sorry.
It must have been so hard for you to be left an empty vessel, as I became a silenced soul.
When you were only a tired frame of palpable bones.
Our fingers singed with frozen blood, cold to touch, with no fuel to stoke the fire.
And sunken sockets in shades of silver; lips of lilac, only passing breath.
The light in our eyes all but extinguished.
You changed, and I changed too.
Dear Body, I’m sorry.
That I couldn’t fight it sooner.

Dear Body, Thank you.
For waiting for me.
For holding on when there wasn’t much of you left.
For persevering, for getting me [for getting us] through.
Dear Body, Thank you.
For coming back fighting, even after failing.
Even when the disease made you shut down.
For loving me even when my mind battled against you.
Tortured you.
Dear Body, Thank you.
For doing everything in your power to help us survive.

Dear Body, I love you.
Although we still bear scars, not physical or visible to the eye.
Although, our bones are aged and porous, our heart still healing, our mind adjusting.
We made it.
You and I.
Dear Body, I love you.
And I will fight for you, just as you fought for me.
Because, you are the keeper of my soul.
The refuge our heart and mind calls home.
Because we deserve it.

Dear Body, I love you.
[Always],
Sara.