our love is my daily coffee
the first thing i look forward to
in the mornings.

the only difference
is that i can't add sugar
when our love is bitter,
and you've always had a thing
for liking your coffee black.

if there were clocks that would send me back
before the time when the neighborhood
was full of toddlers and dying men
when the rain puddles still fell lightly
beneath my still-small galoshes,
i would use them and bring you with me
we'd look at each other with hazel eyes
dripping with the stars and the memories
of our distant futures, far from our miniature grasp,
and talk about flowers and their place in our hearts
and crawl through the mud without our raincoats
to find the worms in the dirt, to build them a
kingdom of sticks and dust
with a moat running through it and we would rule
despite our ever-changing bodies
and our once separate lives

i'd make sure to place you in the empty house
right next to mine
and we'd start again
as brothers

i heard
the other day
some whispers
come my way
that
hope sit near
the poet's
grave

it's been a while, so i thought to get back in the swing of things, i'd post a poem i wrote a few months back. enjoy.*

“some people, most people actually, die before they die. and the death of the mind is so much greater than the death of the body,” my therapist tells me,
his frown barely hidden behind his beard, his brows furrowed and forehead thick with sweat.
i sink into the soft leather couch, hoping the fabric will swallow me whole.
“you need to accept the fact that he is gone.”
so much of my spirit has been torn down.
yesterday, i had a panic attack in the supermarket because my mom picked up a box of cheerios, i was told to avoid two-lane freeways because it would be “too easy,” and i had to run to the bathroom to keep from collapsing because someone was wearing his cologne.
“in order to be happy, you need to let go,” my therapist tells me. i have done everything i can, spent countless hours purging my memory from anything having to do with him.
but i can’t breathe and small parts of me keep seeing him in flashes;
in the wildflowers that grow in the field next to my house, a cloud of smoke out the car window, in clouds and sunsets and the pages of every book i read.
these are the parts of me that don’t want to let go.
but i’m getting there. i am a warrior, i have battled my toughest opponent for years and it will always be myself.
and today, i woke up early, poured myself a cup of coffee, and watched the sun rise.
today, i learned in health class that the femur is the strongest part of the human body. but it’s not. it’s the heart.
see, mine has been broken; it’s been shattered, ripped, torn to pieces, and thrown to the floor like a plate of glass in a fit of rage.
and still, it manages to beat 100,000 times a day and pump 1.3 gallons of blood a minute through this tired body.
i learned that something is always fighting for me, even if it’s only my heart.
i learned that letting go is not necessarily a bad thing.
“but i also think that when we die a part of our soul sticks around those we love. so if you think about it, he is still with you,” my therapist tells me.
i think that’s beautiful.
i can breathe easier.