I wake up and you are still here.
You, of course, being something I can't touch,
a feeling, maybe. A high school crush on forever.
You, of course, are not really a you, but an us,
something I can't touch; a promise
to someone, of something. What it is about
I can't remember. What it is all about I can never
remember.
You are filled with every good day I've ever had
and every good day I never will. Your body bursts
with all the things I didn't get to do
because I was lying in bed, or crying in the shower,
or scared of what strangers would think of me.
When you smile, your teeth bare courage, click-clacking
with the memories of speeding down the highway and turning down
an invitation to a very, very quiet concert.
I can't tear myself into two neat pieces to hate and love you all the same,
I want to pick the meat off the bones and take all the parts I'm grateful for,
leaving you a skeleton carcass that gloats about everything that passed me by.
You, though, are not a meal and I am not a vulture.
I cannot separate the memento from the mori
which, still, leaves me with two choices.
Pretend none of it ever happened,
or accept the whole impossibly beautiful, unimaginably ugly thing.
Nov 15, 2020
Nov 15, 2020 at 8:01 AM UTC
I wake up and you are still here.
You, of course, being something I can't touch,
a feeling, maybe. A high school crush on forever.
You, of course, are not really a you, but an us,
something I can't touch; a promise
to someone, of something. What it is about
I can't remember. What it is all about I can never
remember.
You are filled with every good day I've ever had
and every good day I never will. Your body bursts
with all the things I didn't get to do
because I was lying in bed, or crying in the shower,
or scared of what strangers would think of me.
When you smile, your teeth bare courage, click-clacking
with the memories of speeding down the highway and turning down
an invitation to a very, very quiet concert.
I can't tear myself into two neat pieces to hate and love you all the same,
I want to pick the meat off the bones and take all the parts I'm grateful for,
leaving you a skeleton carcass that gloats about everything that passed me by.
You, though, are not a meal and I am not a vulture.
I cannot separate the memento from the mori
which, still, leaves me with two choices.
Pretend none of it ever happened,
or accept the whole impossibly beautiful, unimaginably ugly thing.
a short poem inspired by unus annus
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