The staircase looked to be painted green or something meant to be blue but ended up green
The green was chipped with flakes of brown hardwood poking through the crevices
Of the emerald color. I stepped on the first staircase remembering the warm Augusts there but mostly the fall. His coat was still hanging on the pole connected to the railing I glanced at it and it glanced back at me. Staring into my soul but my weeping eyes as I remembered what it felt like to be in love. His coat smelled of cologne and dried rain. I put it over my shoulders, tears falling into place.
This staircase in our home belonged to us and only us, but then he left and now it is only me, It is only me with all my faults and ripped jeans too big to fit my withering waistline as I count the days gone by. I count the days on the calendar marking a tiny X in the corner hoping still he might walk through the door. I hope still, that he would greet me with the same expressions he once did before, always first asking me about my day. Now I enter my home with empty dreams and dark memories with no one to call out my name. The staircase was for us, it was the road map to our dreams. The staircase carried our first boxes all marked and packed with things that belonged to us. The staircase carried our long nights after staying up late, talking about things only we knew.
The Staircase who was once emerald green carried what I thought to be our future but ended up as a memory from the past in only a matter of seconds. I never knew why he left me sitting upon that staircase, my head buried in the palms of my hands atop that staircase . He left in a fit of rage with the idea of never coming back, I didn’t think that was so.  But now this staircase carry’s regret, for I shouldn’t have said what I said but the staircase knew I only wanted what was best. The staircase may also carry my future, I just haven’t discovered what that might be yet.

I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus
With tigery stripes, and a face on it
Round as the moon, to stare up.
I want to be looking at them when they come
Picking among the dumb minerals, the roots.
I see them already -- the pale, star-distance faces.
Now they are nothing, they are not even babies.
I imagine them without fathers or mothers, like the first gods.
They will wonder if I was important.
I should sugar and preserve my days like fruit!
My mirror is clouding over --
A few more breaths, and it will reflect nothing at all.
The flowers and the faces whiten to a sheet.

I do not trust the spirit. It escapes like steam
In dreams, through mouth-hole or eye-hole. I can't stop it.
One day it won't come back. Things aren't like that.
They stay, their little particular lusters
Warmed by much handling. They almost purr.
When the soles of my feet grow cold,
The blue eye of my tortoise will comfort me.
Let me have my copper cooking pots, let my rouge pots
Bloom about me like night flowers, with a good smell.
They will roll me up in bandages, they will store my heart
Under my feet in a neat parcel.
I shall hardly know myself. It will be dark,
And the shine of these small things sweeter than the face of Ishtar.

I will wait up for the happiness that once belonged to me. I will kiss the robins in the early morning and the fall leaves right outside my window. The books waiting to be read, I will read them, to pass the time, some a better read than others, but I will read them anyway. The darkness will go away soon as long as I light the candle each night. I will hug the flames, feeling the fire enter my body. I will glow like never before. I will be the light until the happiness that once belonged to me returns.

I laid in bed that night with a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. Not winter but fall. It was back in my home. The darkness I felt winters ago, perched up on my windowsill begging the sun to shine for just one day. I felt his silence when I knew he was near. My heart was heavy and cold, I could hear his words creeping up on me in the night. It was dark. But I could feel the pain rushing back in. It was dark and there was a lonely cat outside my window.