It's easy to see why you fell in love with him,
It's easy to see why you hoped you found forever
But you didn't.
And that disappointment felt like a death
and you have been trapped between anger and denial
for four years.
You think you must bury him in order to bury your grief.
And convincing others of this too
has become a game
where you sleep and play
inside your litter box.
Now the feces of hatred and revenge
stick to your feet wherever you go.
You must turn him into a monster
by telling anyone who will listen
that he is haunting you—and you really want this to be true
because that would mean he was still interested in your life.
But when you are alone and still…you remember...
coffee and stories, genuine kindness
and you know, his only crime was breaking your heart.

I understand your heartbreak;
you saw your knight in shining armor,
The answer to your loneliness.
Your pathway out of poverty.
His demeanor is gentle,
his quiet, listening face
hears your words with truth and interest;
every sentence is allowed to live its full life
until you are validated and understood.
He is your biggest fan, a loving caregiver.
Children and animals are drawn to him
like a shepherd or a father or a friend.
We both know he gave 8 years to a child,
a paraplegic who wasn’t even his own.
Bathed him, carried him, wiped drool from his chin
and in between all the doctors, made him laugh.
He offers himself to everyone this way, so

I understand why losing him hurt you so wholly
I know this, because I love him too.
But I think you and I define love very differently;
I wouldn’t want someone whom I had to threaten to make him stay.
I wouldn’t derive my identity from an unspoken contract
or imaginary promises that I insisted he owed me.
I wouldn’t try to destroy another human being
for the sole purpose of hiding my own embarrassment.
You see, love would remember his beautiful soul
and love would sincerely want him to be happy

Even if that meant he found happiness without you.

The only thing brighter than hope
is loss
it chews into the goldsmith
that makes the soul
and gnaws me into colors
each part of me flying down
into the wilderness I am fluttering
as the farmer ploughs me into earth
where my intensity can rest.

In full dress once
I left an economy of boughs,
the candle isn't lit, a wick without its crown
I leave the world schooled in lean and lithe, a yogi,
I am here to study my own neglect.
The rest of the world, lion bodied,
glances at my century of rough.

But I robed the ground with my convictions
I couldn’t keep them
seasons burst out of me
even if I wanted to hoard my greedy treasures for myself
I couldn't
thus robbed of my enfranchisement
I mutter in time to the wind
sorrow gave me this reason-flayed second purpose

Which is to feed others, my body now a spilled nut
I am birded by the sowing belly of earth
my bells are rained and pinched
by this tapering
I am being shrunk to get through the door to death
only snow will enter in the end
when I am covered white and immaculate
together we give up color for the season of bones.

i longed for you
but i couldn’t find you
for shadows,

the moon shone weakly in the
december cold,
my shirt washed out
like a blowsy cloud,

everything singing
of winter ghosts,
time just an illusion,
**** frost like
a sharp indigo blade,

bleached out at the seams
like a whale bone
the threadbare night
unwound,
layers of grey shadows,
lustreless,

my lips yearned
for your lips,
my legs for
your legs,

the roses of the
sweet night
a flowery mist,

but still i could not
find you and my
lonely heart
raged like a
raggedy storm.

There’s always ****, misery and deep conversations