I.
People leave huge
Holes in your spine.

II.
But flowers die,
Crumbling deaths,
For one heartwarming
Moment.

III.
An empty skull;
Suffocating... thoughtless breaths.
Trembling feet as I walk among the dead,
Are you afraid?

IV.
I'm afraid.

V.
"Unattainable"
What a throne I slouch upon.

Maya Angelou once said,

"I've learned that people will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget how you made them feel"

although the thing is,
I wont forget
any of it.
the open ears,
the listening,
the understanding that was so easily given
I will always remember
the way he congratulated me
the day I pulled poetry from my teeth

I wont forget how he made us feel-
we.
we    wont forget how he made
us feel

the many conversations that lived in his office are
now stuck in between the cracks of the walls
I imagine the dark of the theatre in mourning,
the curtains heavier,
more blue than they are usually
the black of the paint floor chipping backwards to
share the memories saying,
"Look,
It is all here underneath
your feet."

if you have ever wondered what magic feels like
I can tell you with certainty that
it is a bear grasp from a tower of a man and
a laugh that can be defined more correctly as a chuckle
or most importantly, a smile that
knew comfort when
it was most needed

what is hardest about it all is
this reality, the growing up that comes with losing
I am trying to comprehend the fact
that there are going to be students,
new ones,
who
will never know the magic that
is a Conway hug

I know
we will all be reminiscing, telling stories and
his name will be a past tense we
didn't want to have to use
this is a poem I
never wanted to have to
write.
one about a man who carried so many hearts
inside his own
the same one who
reminded me of my worth on
more than one occasion
this is about the man who was like a father when
my own was sick
this is about the man
who directed my first kiss
on the same stage where I learned how to be vulnerable
and how to trust

it is so easy to say,
this isn't fair.
but then I picture him,
arms crossed, replying
"Life isn't fair"
and he would be correct in
saying it isn't, no,
life isn't fair.
but what a privilege it is
to have had him
in mine
what a privilege it is
to have known him
at all

Maya was wrong,
we wont forget what he said,
sitting in the center of the studio referencing someone's house
"Treat it like your grandmother's"

I wont forget what he did,
what he taught me,
us.
we wont forget any of it,
I promise.

I go out to dinner with a near stranger
we sit on the same side of the booth and
I think about how you're the only one who
knows how much I hate that

I drink a drink with ***** and lime and
***** and it almost makes me feel like
I know who I am when I'm with someone else

I don't think of you often but last night I did
I remembered how your arms are the
only place where I am not self-conscious

I lie next to him on my balcony and
there are a lot of stars above us but
I'm the only one who notices

he is thinking about what I look like naked and
I'm counting how many hours of sleep
I will get if he leaves before 2

there is not an absence of feeling,
just a different kind than I'm used to
he touches my hand and I smile in
a way that doesn't feel forced

I spend a day with a near stranger and realize
there is so much he does not know about me,
so much he doesn't care to

like how I got my nose pierced at 14 or
the amount of time I spend in the mirror each morning
picking myself into something I can carry only semi-confidently

he only learns I can't ride a bike when he asks if I want to
he has no idea that my blonde is shielding a deep brown or
when I got the freckle above my lip or
the inch long scar underneath my chin

he doesn't care and that's okay
when he leaves we say I miss you but
in a different way than I'm used to

it is not a pain swelling to be morphined
nor is it a pulling from the gut but instead
it is the ever temporary desire to fill the excess lonely

we say I miss you and still mean it but
it is not the missing that a body feels for
a phantom limb

I am with him now and probably will be again but
moving on doesn't mean I don't miss you
it only means I'm trying not to

just because I'm all right doesn't mean
I don't wonder how you are
I can still be happy with the existence of a quiet ache

but yes I do
miss you,
I will until the day I can sleep without having to count sheep
I will miss you even if there are no stars in the sky to remind me

I don't think of you but last night I did
the moon was too bright and
I was the only one
who noticed

Thought I saw the rolling storms
In the dustbin clouds. Thought I
Heard ghouls moaning through
Their wandering shrouds.
Felt something stirring
Deep deep
Beneath the Sea.
(Maybe It was the titans calling out to me)
My world seemed to shake and shriek
With a pressing voice that rang out
"For evermore,
For evermore".
Whether It was a whimper, or the
Passing of a lush...
Whether It was through a thicket, a
Mountain, or a
Touch
Or whether it wasn't
Any sound audible enough
To hear-
Haunting some hollowed ground where it seemed to appear.
Through the creaking In the floor, and
The quiet of the well...
(Where your hair stands up when your heart strings bell)
The words don't sit quite right
And you disagree...
(When the mere mention of something seems terrifying)
Imploding bombs of atomic construction
Seem to go off and bruise their function;
Miscellaneous hands
Grappling, pulling,
Letting go;
Reaching for solace for evermore,
For evermore.
When the strawberries have rotted
And the bluebells withered up
When a shivering lake of frost descends on my cup.
When the sadness figures inconspicuous,
Behind tall wall'ed towers,
When no-thing tangible seems real and
Nothing impermanent seems to matter.
Longing for when the leaves swing like a cyclone,
(High beyond the trees)
Where the willows thrive and
The moonshine bleeds;
Till through some epiphany
Like the dawn we finally see,
What beauty In the broken be...
If not beside you and not within me.