you are the river.
you're not the dirt that washes through it.
you're not the animal that drinks from the shore.
you're not the leaves that float in the current.
you're not the heat that dries the bed.
you're not the pollution that floods the stream.
you're not the frost that freezes the waves.
you're not the rain that floods the banks.
you're not what passes through you, harms you, oppresses you.
you are the river.

"he used to write poems about me," mum says.
she's pouring her first glass of whiskey and her hands are shaking, but she doesn't feel it.
it has been proven difficult for her to feel much of anything anymore.
she's on her third glass now.
she says,
"he was so in love with me."
cut to glass number 5 and i swear to god she's crying liquor now.
she says, "i can't believe he's gone" and says "goodnight."
and gets in bed right next to him.

maybe i don't know much, but i do know about the fires inside of me urging to be extinguished.
they feel much larger than i am.
they scream for any means of relief.
so heavy they might as well be an extra limb.
the human heart has unique versatility of loving so hard, feeling so deeply, but also experiencing so much ******* pain.
whether it be anger
resentment
or just outright sadness,
in whatever form it manifests, it's loss.
your sanity, a person, your equilibrium.
in whichever way you grieve, a loss is a loss.
but, you've got to hold on, my love.
human beings are crafted far too beautifully to fall short of anything but going down swining.
i bear witness to the flames turning into smouldering reminders that the world is so **** tough.
but when relief comes, it comes.
it doesn't feel much like it now, but the darkness does subside.
in the same way that the earth begins to repair itself after all of this devastation, you too can be begin again.

- show me a map of the battle wounds, but markers on the places that cut the deepest.
-don't cry anger, or pity, or knives. just cry.

his whiskey arms
unconvincingly,  your lungs are not composed of broken glass and tissue paper
there are no "i love you's" in whiskey and coke flavored lips,
strong hands,
the back of his truck
and there never was
someday, somebody will love your feeble insides
it's all in a matters time.

you feel like home after a long trip away,
grandma's kitchen and consistency.
earl grey tea with honey,
slipping into bed after a day that felt like an eternity,
you feel like all of that is good and right and whole.
thank you for loving me this way.