i wish i was there when you were lonely.

i wish you knew you weren't alone.

your wife passed, you can barely stand anymore, and your friends are far too busy with their own lives.

who would even notice?

nobody visited often, so it might take a day or two for them to know.

perhaps, a neighbour will question the change in your routine,
or perhaps, they will begin to smell the decomposition on a hot, humid day.

being alone was for the better.

the pain you carried was always meant to be a burden shared by two.

i wish i was there when you loaded the gun.
i wish i was there when the loneliness made you pull the trigger.

i wish you knew i thought of you when i reminiscence our youth.
i wish you knew i thought of your name when i think about my friends.

i wish i was there.

i wish you knew.

dear mockingbird,
what made you swear silence?
it’s unlike your species to become selective mutes,
or, perhaps,
is it because you’ve tired of your sole performance?
you’ve become a broken record,
stuck on repeat:
the same song and dance.
you didn’t know what else to sing,
didn’t know any other tune.
this will become your swan song.

i think about ending it often.

ending the friendship that burns me out.
ending the relationship i am falling out of.
ending the pain of it all.

but ending it would mean the end of something else.

the end of us laughing in your mother’s car.
the end of you pressing your lips into the palm of my hand.
the end of all my undiscovered tomorrows.

i find myself wishing for an end that wouldn’t quite end at all.

and me?
i was the dust accumulating on a book he once loved.

unobtrusive in nature, but ubiquitous all at once.
a small presence that often goes unnoticed.

when he reaches for the book, i will linger on the tips of his fingers for just a moment, filled with a fleeting and embarassing sense of hope.

the hope that he was actually reaching for me.

“Are you okay?”,
my wife asks
when I cough.

“No. I’m fine.
Yes. I’m not”,
I respond,

stumping her
in the poetic irony
of words that

encompass the
yes and no
and the in between.

She flips the finger
at me and I return
the bird to the nest.

We go back to our life
and our tablets,
the drip, drip of my chemo
and I wonder about okay.

“No.  You’re fine.
Yes. You’re not.”,
the bag stares in response.