Morning light comes crashing through the
windows of my terribly mundane room,
the same place I wake day after day. Dust has settled
on the picture frames week after week and leaves
a pall of sadness over the bookshelves.

Misery isn’t always some place we speak of
so distantly, as if waking up here wasn’t akin to
tearing off a scab and rubbing salt and sand
into the wound. My first thought of the day was
a wish, that love could be more than
just a blank page staring back.

The first sip of hot coffee reminds me of the
velvety words that always fell from your mouth. I’m
wishing that I was in another place or knew
another language, like the one I already know
somehow isn’t good enough for writing you poems.

I’m snapped out of my nostalgic mind
by the neighborhood children playing on the street.
Their screams echo down these barren halls; I wish
I could be five and full of pure joy while
learning the world all over again. But I have aged
and my innocence was lost so many years ago.

Everything I had tried to write you was full of guilt
and sadness and missing my genuine joy. Before I had to
picture my mother in a casket. Before I knew you’d leave
for someone who could fake happiness better
than I ever could. Before I lost that last bit of naïve light.

I’ll be searching for the beauty I once held inside.
Today my thoughts are shrouded in what was better
about yesterday. There is no use in counting money and
moments already spent. Maybe for a day I’ll forget you and
force myself to write freely and be childlike. I won’t try to
quantify beautiful, writable moments of everyday life.

Maybe today I’ll actually let myself write.