I
Did
Not
Know
That
Death
Was
It’s
To
Keep

I wish there had been a moment
between loss and grief

a moment to catch my breath
before I had to heal

because healing took energy
I did not have

I wish there had been a moment
to just say goodbye

because healing is messy,
and I don’t get enough time or grace now

to simply kiss you on your way

I miss you quietly, sometimes,

no body shaking sobs
no gut wrenching agony.

just the memory of your smile,
and the smell of your hair,

haunting echoes of a life lived with you.

those are the dangerous days,

the days when my smile
doesn’t fade
at the mention of your name

The knives of grief stab me in the heart
over and over again and again

they penetrate the beating
pulse that is keeping me alive

when that which I loved
is now merely ashes

I try to find beauty
in the chaos of
hopeless longing

for that which I can never
have again

my heart keeps
beating
beating
beating

but I am dead inside

We picked feathers
off the ground and
saved them, hoping we
would eventually collect
enough to fly

when the frost came
and covered the streets in
white dew, we wound count
out how many we had

but it was as if we were
always in debt to the birds
who’d lost them, plucking out
the one thing that gave them
a freedom that we would
never know

We were strangers drifting
on a sea of chance

meetings in smoky clubs
hands slipped together like silk

stained coffee cups and sugar lumps
in my throat

and then the waves crashed
against our promises

of a future that was a double dare
to promise

You bleed the black ink that flows
from my
pen

but if I am to write a love song
I shall sing to you as you fall asleep

or a shattered heart letter that
I shall burn and never send

I
Don’t
Know
Anymore