My Cowboy is Dead

The school bush dance is on Friday…

which means

an entire gymnasium

full of tiny cowboys

.

boots

felt hats

checked shirts

children running feral

to frenzied fiddle music

.

everyone pretending

for one night

they belong inside

some dusty country song

and quite honestly

something that was

fun last year

feels weirdly offensive this year…

because my cowboy is dead

.

which sounds dramatic

until you realise

it is unfortunately very true

he was a real life cowboy…

not the costume-shop variety

or the craft beer

weekend kind

but a genuine sunburnt

bull-riding

cowboy

who could rope

and herd

and calm frightened things

.

smelt like

sweat

and sunlight

and honest work outdoors

and now here I am

wearing his old denim shirt

to the bush dance

the shirt

that still smells like him

because I can’t bear

to wash him out of it

the shirt he wore

on the day our daughter was born

which feels

like too much love

for one single piece of fabric

to hold

.

forever my favourite shirt

but there’s no time

for nostalgia

because the world

refuses to read the room

children laughing

hay in their hair

parents line dancing awkwardly

someone yelling “YEEHAW”

while i stand there

holding grief

and a paper plate

with home baked goods

wearing the shirt

of the cowboy

I thought

would always be

there next to me

trying not to unravel

because his smell

still exists in this world

even though he doesn’t

.

he exists now

only in photographs

and memories

and our baby’s devastatingly blue eyes

but the world insists

on spinning anyway…

demanding my participation

in this strange

beautiful

heartbreaking circus

we call life