The Days I Loved You Most

by Amy Neff

“I’ve spent too many days without you.”

“I will never stop wishing for more time with you.”

He kisses me, and all I can think about is his skin against my skin and how soft it all feels, like petals.

but it frightens me to love him this much. It’s one more thing to lose. I don’t know how to describe it, except in moments, notes on a page, that build to create something beautiful and uniquely ours.

For what? Year after year of trying. Ann’s face tightening when well-meaning colleagues asked her when we were going to have kids. The nights I held my sobbing wife in our bed while we grappled with the reality that it wasn’t going to happen for us.