In some other life, we hung stockings and filled them. Our three children had to be shooed off to bed every night so we could wrap presents and eat the candy we told them not to eat too much of. We drank hot cocoa stirred with candy canes, and lit every candle we could find, and you always chided me for tracking in snow, and I always had to tell you to stop letting the cats eat the popcorn off the tree. In some other life, there were no bullet wounds, no secrets, no ridiculous brain hemorrhage getting in our way. You and I built the Christmas fire together, and you put your finger down while I tied bows, and you wrote out gift tags immediately because I could never remember which gift was which. In some other life, you tasted like fire against my lips, and you told me I tasted like whisky and pixie sticks, and everything was exhausting and hard and wonderful.
In some other life, I wore your ring, and under that, I wore your name, tattooed around my finger. In some other life, you wore a ring, and my name. Yours was the first face I saw in the morning, and the last I saw before I went to bed. We were never out of reach of one another, always able to grasp, to hold a hand.
In some other life, we never let go.