This is the first year
when the tulips grow without you,
and as they bloom my heart bursts

with a kind of melancholy I have learnt to nurse
during bitter cold mornings and ink blank nights
my eyes searching for you at breakfast, your coffee mug still intact

unlike your body, unlike my heart

but the tulips bloom and so too
does something new

peace,
peace settles in my soul

my head stops spinning with
what if and might have been

and those tulips,
those gorgeous silk like
purple, orange, yellow and red tulips

save me

I have weathered storms that shook
my heart against my rib cage

Battled lightning bolts
that gave my brain electric shocks

and yet -

I cannot withstand this goodbye
that tastes like battery acid in my throat
everytime i try and say your name

I cannot find the strength to let you go,
even though you are

- gone

your face echoes, wild as the wind in my memories

all I have is love
this love that was not enough to save you
so how can this love save me

from crumbling with grief

The things you’ve taken from me
cannot be counted,
cannot be listed,
cannot be measured

like the passage of time since that day
where I have stagnated,
the taste of my own blood

still rich upon my tongue
and other tastes that are not mine,
now belonging to me

a memory torn to pieces
yet burning with white hot precision

I have buried myself in blankets,
drink, drugs and denial

but I cannot change the truth
the bloodied, fleah torn fact
that you were once

inside me

The stars were just lights in the sky
until you became one of them,
burning memory in the midnight sky

memories that I took to bed
and hid beneath my pillow
because they too

burnt my fingertips every time
I dared touch one,

how can one shine
so beautifully bold outside,
and inside be so deeply buried beneath
layers of regret, shame and grief?

the evening rain
gently washes the scars
that hum like a wire
under the moonlight

we are rooted forever
with one foot in yesterday
and the other shaking
with agitated anticipation

not knowing it’s next move
preparing to take
a leap of faith into

tomorrow

I scan the sky every night
for your star,
the one that burns with your memory
and name,
I kick myself that I cannot tell it apart
from an infinity of stars scattered
across an inky black carpet

But tonight, a single star shone alone,
brilliant and bold, and I felt
an unseen hand on my shoulder,
squeezing out the tension of grief
that had been held there,
for so many months,

and the star’s sigh merged
with my own exhalation of relief

I tipped
a bottle
of midnight
black ink
onto a fresh
white page

inhaled, exhaled

and carved patterns
out of the chaos

etchings that
would be the
start of my
first chapter

without you