One night after
a day of
let downs and
all the rest
I parked my car
in its spot;
let the engine run.
I couldn’t
step out
or turn the
engine off.
You came running
down the stairs
to my door.
You reached in,
turned off the car,
guided me out.
I thought maybe
that could be
enough
Fleeting
yet powerful
moments of love.
Tag: grief
Royale (clarity)
you consistently took pictures of me and of us and I'd smile and you'd lean your head towards my own I look at the ones from the Cove and the summer before your eyes are the clearest blue I always thought they would reveal, open I thought they'd let me in Opaque we are together and not in every photograph and I held on waiting for the clear imagining the moment you'd love me enough The clarity was never in the blue of your eyes or in our tent on the Isle it was always here in my knowing that we were temporary fleeting it's why i worked tirelessly to resist it to make us permanent but this wasn't some challenge or journey of worth this was simply two people intertwined in timing and love you were satisfied, content and I couldn't handle the truth in the opaqueness the reality that was right in front of me
picture
I walked the stairs to your place using the key i let myself in like nothing had changed. I dropped some things off in what feels like a final exchange I walked through the rooms and saw the picture of us taken off the wall A part of me knew that would happen, eventually and I'm not sure how I would have felt if you'd left it hanging I moved to your cupboard noticed a card I had given you 7 months in I read the promise I made that at the time you could not return I turned around and noticed the picture of us on the floor. The same floor that held us the night we ended It feels more final, now solidified here in this image on the floor and the empty wall I now know that my first time in Amsterdam with you will be my last the picture is the last piece of the puzzle that we never finished because I didn't have all of the pieces and neither did you - at least, not ones that fit my own but we tried. I know we did. Those two people in that picture did their best and grew apart loved deeply and tried again I hope you take the picture off the floor, store it in a place where one day you can look back and smile and know that on that balcony we laughed we had hope we loved.
Fireworks
I wanted to
write
in biting
verse
Asking about
your party
and my friends
in attendance
I’d make some
metaphor about
Independence Day
I wanted to
lash out
and ask
how the space
felt as you
hosted.
I’m still angry -
I’m still grateful.
I’m not going
to maneuver my
schedule around
your’s, anymore.
And I won’t
reach for you
in drunken texts
or in venomous
poems.
In the end
all it is
is missing you
and us
and the summer
before
And if I can’t
let go
I hope you can.
I hope you find
better
I hope it’s
more than
fireworks.
Oh,
didn’t I tell you?
I repel
the explosions
and the smoke
Sometimes
I hate them.
The empty sky
and hidden stars
once the show
ends.
But you’re
not them
and you’re
no performance
You’re sun
in February
and lightning
in June.
You are joy.
“How was your party?”
I’ll ask, pointedly.
“Did you see fireworks?”
And if you ask if I
saw them, too,
I’ll nod and smile
in the same
restrained way
you smile at me, now.
“Sure, I saw them,”
knowing damn well
I didn’t even look.
living room floor
I kept my winter coat wrapped
around me
like it would
be ripped
from me
Like I had
something to lose.
Walking into your house,
I could taste the lingering
cigarette smoke
When silence felt suffocating,
we tried humor.
Finally you asked for
what we both knew
I would not,
perhaps could not,
give.
My feeling of resolve
demanded our attention.
I became aware that this time,
this meeting,
could not be kept afloat
from half of myself
given to you
I could not offer pieces
and call that love.
In that moment on the
floor of the room
where we both built
and collapsed
it was decided there would
be no last time.
I took responsibility for my
own feelings.
I took my healing seriously.
As if planned,
memories of the last
2 years played before us
in the realization
that I would no longer fit,
these were patterns
I could not sustain.
I remembered the day
you bought this house
and we stained the floor
installed a new rug
that we now baptize
with the remnants of grief.
We opened the door,
gutted the house and
attempted to restore
what we could.
As I went to leave,
I did not look back
in your direction.
I left the key on the kitchen table
I left us on the living room floor
In the next room
In one room
my grandmother begs for peace.
She cries for her mother,
screams in confusion and pain.
In the kitchen, he cooks dinner alone.
Smelts, fresh bread, salad, a beer.
I watch my grandfather as he moves
quiet and purposeful.
He fries the fish as he holds back tears.
He hears his wife cry out in pain.
His own is angry, frustrated.
He tells me,
“this was not supposed to happen.
This is not how I imagined the end.”
He sits at the kitchen table
the Steelers’ game plays in front of him
He does not notice me watching
as he drizzles hot sauce on his meal.
He turns, sensing me behind him,
tells me to grab a plate.
I do, knowing this is an important offering.
He fixes me dinner,
too many smelts than I can stomach,
salad, and bread.
I begin to eat silently next to him
This is his language of love.
He gets up suddenly
grabs a glass from the cupboard
pours half of his beer in the glass.
He hands it to me.
I drink. I take him in.
I say nothing. Because I know
he needs this. He needs me
to be silent with him, to eat
the food he has made
to accept what love
he has left to give.
To do something
anything.
Burn
There is pain
at the center of my chest
it reaches for cold,
anything to soothe the fire
you had no intention of lighting.
Tell me,
what is the antidote
to loneliness?
To rejection?
You do not reach out.
It hurts more than if
you’d simply write
to tell me
I am not the one for you.
I am burning, burning,
don’t you see?
Moments and meaning and time
swirling around,
wasted.
Wasted on
thinking of a love
that never began
or lasted
long enough
for it to burn.
Reflections on the expectation of loss
There’s something
incredibly sad
in the meeting
of new people.
There's a weight that forms
with all that comes with
the give and take,
the sharing.
There’s so much that can be lost.
If I didn’t meet you
I wouldn’t know
that I’d miss
the way you appreciate
the art on my walls
or how you
talk about
the flowers of Pennsylvania.
I wouldn’t know
what it feels like
to be touched by you.
Anticipatory grief
is my way of preparing
for the sadness that comes
despite the joy
and the gains.
In the midst of pleasure,
there’s a part of me
that prepares for the end
as soon as something begins.
What’s its shape
“How’ve you been?”
A dull stab to a stubborn wound.
I share that 12 hours of my day are fulfilling.
I work,
I problem solve,
I learn.
I withhold the rest of it.
The aimless hours
ruminating
on the could have beens
the losses.
It's when I'm alone the fear spreads.
Most days the void is tangible.
It’s shapeless.
I want to label it to know it fully.
I’d know its name and greet it warmly.
Loss spreads.
Grief grows.
I think too often of the last conversation.
The ending.
And when it all feels too deeply rooted
I'm reminded
that the anxiety will find
a different power source.
The sadness will attach to something new.
I begin to make peace with the idea
that I can still have you
in sadness and grief.
In honoring the memories.
And so I'll wait
for the days in which
my heart feels less a part of your own.
When I stop visualizing
moving in unison.
Until then, they'll ask,
“How are you?”
“I’m doing great, thanks for asking,”
My heart,
my heart, though.
My heart won’t know
it’s own shape for some time
The Restless Crescent 