Work Text:
i. september
nothing aches more than to remember
a forgotten home.
mist taps on the shattered windows. I can’t
let her in. I can’t
allow this place to become whole again.
the crickets buzz through the closed glass as if
there is nothing separating us at all, as if
they know me, truly.
I can’t keep pretending I have what I want.
I miss the rain. I miss
letting the reminders of your love
wash away in the aftermath.
is it selfish to want it all back?
don’t answer that; I know what it means
to remember.
spring wilts away, as always, and
you never bloom again.
oftentimes, I think about
digging a grave for you,
placing flowers at your footprints—
only to stop, shamefully, and think
of how you might come back.
and here I am, weeping peonies
over the depths of your memory.
is it so wrong to miss it so dearly?
don’t answer that; I know what it means
to forget.
I claw at the shattered windows. they won’t
let me in. I can’t
recall the last time I felt whole.
stars scream though the closed glass because
there is nothing separating us at all, because
they know me, truly.
I can’t keep thinking I am what I once was.
I’ll carve both our names into the gravestone,
hand slipping on the years passed,
and strike through your letters
until I am left behind.
here I am, again, again;
fall blooms bitterly, as always, and
I can never breathe again.
I tossed my sorrows into the sea;
she diagnosed me with
an ache behind the eyes that
you can’t quite place, because
if you name her,
she might grow wings again.
I have been bedridden for thirty-six minutes
and one hundred seven days.
in my footsteps, the dreams follow,
unable to break from shadow.
I raised my sorrows up to the sky;
she prescribed me
the fallen sunshine
from a life never lived.
afraid of the future.
afraid of the past.
let’s sit in shattered silence
and pretend to know what grief means.
ii. october
if there ever was / an endpoint / in your arms
iii. november
there could have been sunlight.
isn’t that just the thing?
wishing on premonitions.
I dreamt that you took
the rain clouds as you went.
there comes a point where
grief becomes an anticipation
of loss.
the gold spilling across the autumn leaves
is only a prediction of how
the summer sun will fall
from the arms of her mother,
pooling on the sidewalk
for me to bend over
and weep upon.
I don’t think about how
her wilting smile fades into yours.
can’t you see?
there could have been us
you could have been there.
(and yet, in the corner of my eye—)
the ghost from my nightmares
haunts the windowsill.
palm against the pane,
tears melting into morning dew,
I beg her to rest.
I beg you to go.
when will it leave me here,
unknown by the future?
here, try this:
wake up an hour earlier each morning,
chasing the waning sun,
until she hasn’t even left yet.
if you hold your breath just right,
the sunlight almost looks warm.
it’s a trick of the light;
the clouds remain, dripping sorrow
onto your cheeks, and
you have been suffocating
all your life.
there comes a point where you are on the verge
between losing and having lost.
the sky becomes
a sickly sight,
red flushed leaves showing their embarrassment
against the weeping gray.
I tossed my cure into the sea;
she sobbed at my feet
and begged me to drown.
I wanted a softer kind of knowing.