I thought I was lonely,
simply because I live alone
But lately I've noticed that
the loneliness of watching a
documentary I've seen
six times in six months,
surrounded by nothing but
the eerie darkness of 2 AM
in a one bedroom apartment
is nothing compared to the
loneliness of smoking a cigarette
at 4 in the afternoon with you,
counting tragedies on bruises &
scars in the spare room of your
best friend's new place

Regrets take root
in my decomposing heart
and fruiting bodies take hold
of my brain, like
cordyceps without a purpose-

Leaving this pale exoskeleton,
devoid of light or sound.
I shuffle through empty rooms
that once rang with your laughter,
staring at the floor as if I could
divine answers from spaces
that you once tread.

And I think I'd like to learn
how to escape this state
of suspended animation,
how to feel something again,
but my body is so heavy
with this sorrow
that produces no tears,
no bloodshed,
only a foreboding miasma
that sits at the edge of my thoughts-

A death sentence
to the woman who tries
to hold oceans
inside a thimble.

sometimes,
the s y l l a b l e s of your name
still feel like staples in my chest.

I said your name aloud
in the candlelight,
like a small séance
for unrequited love.

I waited for you to haunt me
with your voice and quiet smile,
and felt a ghost of you
brush my cheek.

But when I reached for you
the candles only flickered
and the room was screaming
with unbearable silence.

And in the calm water, there
sits the seed of a story:

Green under blue -
the tale of a fish who flew,

Because the tree came to her.