my tears aren’t forced
they flow in that
dark tunnel that she
dreamed so long ago
she wasn’t ready
to take her first steps
I wasn’t ready to
take mine without her.
Little things bring her back
like empty bowls or the tower
of books she’s never going to read.
People have been calling this a
trauma, but they’ve forgotten the
loneliness of life’s journey. She dreamed
a tunnel and added bright lights
and dusted the floor with powdery snow
she traveled far yet I can
only see the trails of
milk puddling around the lost key that she
dropped under blankets
of memory and phrases of
I-promise and tomorrow. I’m growing up as
she falls down. She wasn’t
perfect but that’s why it
was so easy to love her.
My journey’s ongoing, and the
deep undercurrents of pain and
grief are pulling me through
that tunnel.
I’m rowing softly by,
quietly, quietly,
as she is laid to rest.
her memories swallow the emptiness
she is kneeling at the throne.
I follow slowly and leave my
tears for her to know that life’s
path isn’t paved in water but
with sorrow, with endings, and with lost
boats on turbid seas.

One pulls me down in a sea of tenderness
safe gentle lapping waves of love and comfort
so soothing like a warm summer pond in the south
He is my anchor

The other loves me like a wild forbidden passionate rush
an all consuming type of love, making the world disappear
clinging to a life raft in a turbulent sea
He is my storm

Enticing waters with the luminous waves that can tempt the dead from their bed. My soul longs for both. I cannot drift off to peaceful sleep until the waves of desire find their sweet release. A wondrous storm of love in a turbulent sea or a steadfast anchor that has taken hold on a part of me