Valkyrie

He sits on the edge of our king bed, muscular back heaving under a burden of tears I can not see and whimpers I can not hear. His life was not like mine, he was a soldier once, but not before we first met. We were both 15 and terminally in love - inseparable. He was and is the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. His blue eyes indented within a hardened, symmetrical face, but those eyes say so much. They keep his secrets, even if the scars speak loudly. The old wounds along his right trapezius, the long closed holes in his right ankle and thigh, I often wonder the stories they tell. I know from my life they are knife and bullet wounds, and I so yearn to ask but dare not. At one point they were packed with blood and bone, but returned with fertile detritus from some rotting jungle in Central America. He paid a price so I could go to college, medical school, residency, etc. You know what I wish the most? I wish I had been there when they brought him home and that my healing hands put his pieces back together