he doesn't bleed orange and blue anymore

The five stages of grief,

except nobody died.

They still flow through me

like he's gone forever,

but does it even matter?

It's not like he knows who I am.

However, he is gone,

forever,

from the place I know him best.

I won't see him

in the same jersey I always did,

or kicking up the same dirt.

Different colors,

ones that I'm not used to,

will surround him,

beginning in February,

too soon for me to comprehend. 

The light shines differently now,

in a way I never thought it would.

A way that's so fucking devastating

I can't control myself.

The lineup looks different,

knowing my favorite player

is no longer there.

The field feels empty,

pretending nothing has changed,

when, in reality,

left field isn't being played by

the same person I made all those signs for,

got all those autographs from.

The person I love so much,

but he doesn't bleed orange and blue anymore.

Huh, that's weird.

Oh...right.

But nobody else would get it,

and I don't expect them to.

I don't expect people to understand

my problems the way I do

and I don't want them to.

I don't want people to know

that this is hurting me,

something they'd find so stupid,

but something that was my whole world.

It's crushing me, the way he's gone,

but not dead.

Because it just doesn't make sense,

and it never will,

but I don't believe it yet.

And I hate that I don't believe it

because I want to believe it

despite how much I fucking hate it

and the way it will always sit with me,

the way it will soak in my skin

until the tears build up from

sadness and disbelief.

My only Christmas wish is that

he'd come back to the place I know him best,

but that won't happen, at least not

for another five years.

And he'll never hear my wish,

because he doesn't know who I am.

I'm just one in 41,800,

sitting in the stadium he used to call home

just two months ago,

dreading the day he comes back

in a different uniform.