Did you know I loved you
when you left, last fall?
I didn't tell you
but, I thought you saw.
Now, you're not that far
still you never call.

I'm happy now
well, I want to be.

Sometimes, I wonder
do you think of me?

my insides are rotting
my teeth have fallen out
my head is balding
im ugly, no one would love me

yet theres always that one person
who thinks your beautiful
despite being so flawed
be that person to someone

and both of you might find love

Mango
High on the tree she grows
Mango
Too high for me I suppose
In all of her colors: Orange, gold, green, red
Let it go, fade away instead

Mango
Safe in her leathery skin
Mango
I never knew how to begin
But one thing in common, as I sink my teeth
We both hide the sunshine underneath

Can't hear no sour talkin
You were always sweet to me
When I grow tired of walking
I have a sit beneath the mango tree

Denial
     things were never supposed to end
     like this.
     my body remembers you,
     like surgery, like scar.
     the imprint of loss doesn't fit
     when I was never supposed to lose you
     in the first place.

2. Anger
     the hands.
     the fists.
     screaming to skies that don't listen.
     apologies are nothing when you've
     shoved me into the villain role
     knowing all along you broke me in the first place.
  
3. Bargaining
     i'd give anything to have you back.
     i'd given anything to never
     want you back.
     and it's always right there in the middle.
     knowing you're no good for me,
     knowing that you could have been.

4. Depression
     the whole body ache. the
     imsorryitsamess I am doingmybest.
     the way they hold your hands and tell you
     it gets better, you get over it, you stop wanting
     you stop wanting. one day it just stops.
     it's the way they can't see the bruises, the battering
     because the outsides look fine. the outsides smile.
     the outsides are a good employee, a good friend.
     the outsides are a much better actor
     than i give them credit for.

5. Acceptance
     it's like marking a page in a book,
     setting it down, never picking it back up
     again. tragic. the movement of life. it sits
     on a shelf, months, years. you forget the plot
     the characters, the motion. your fingers run
     over its spine every so often, thinking you'll
     come back to it. it's how you never think the end
     is the end, how it burns, how you forget the last
     kiss, the last I love you, the last everything. how
     eventually, the sting of those lost memories stops
     stinging. how you forget you ever started the book
     in the first place


and it's how someday you do pick up the book
again, you do, and it all comes rushing back to you.
the circle of the stages, how each one becomes
a familiar visitor you welcome in with warm coffee
and ask how they've been. they don't ever really
ask you. for awhile, it's like getting hit in the stomach,
lost for air. eventually the visitors go elsewhere for
coffee, and you never realize when you've finally
put down that book for the last time.

sometimes you can't just walk it off.
sometimes you have to rebreak the bones
before they'll heal right. sometimes
you have to sew the cuts closed
and sometimes you pick the scabs over
and over again before the itching stops.
sometimes they become faint scar,
injury really only you can see. sometimes
the scars are so thick and dark that
they become the most noticeable part
of your body.

sometimes we heal.
sometimes we don't.
sometimes we say goodbye
over and over to the ghost
in the mirror, watching the
scars deepen with every
desperate breath.

wake in the early winter morning,
let the cold settle in your bones,
serve the quiet reminder that
all things come to an end eventually.
the silence of snow and the howl
of wind are the two hands that
say both goodnight and welcome home.
the sudden winter storms will heal
if you let them, but they'll also
steal you away when you
get lost in the night.
don't allow yourself to be
swallowed by the ache of it,
by the barren silence of it all.