I remember your paws going from softly thundering up to crashing down the hallway,
and every game of chase you grew too old for.
I know about the ferocious but tender decision to set you down.
This time there is no need to struggle to get up.
Your wobbly memory survives in the rugs that were put down to help you walk again.

He stapled his shadow to the stars,
And stitched his dreams and scars
To the sky.

He buried his voice in the clouds
then taught the mourning shrouds
how to cry.

the space in my mind
is occupied by your entity,
merging with mine.
you pose as a false god,
painting me the enemy –
demanding a sacrifice
each time i resist
your quiet reign.

i enabled it.
let you have your fun.
called it inspiration,
called it love.
called it anything
but what it was.
of all my failures,
you were the most toxic one.

i gave you everything –
piece by piece.
you’d cover my mouth
to silence the plea
whenever i sought shelter,
with hands, trembling,
still tied to a bottle
you call the cure.

you smother what’s left of me –
dressed in ebriety,
hiding the abuse.

and i need to say goodbye.
not because i want to.
but because I’ve had enough.
of you hurting me,
of you driving me
to hurt myself.
you’re costing me everything,
and the loss is exorbitant.

i’m not just saying goodbye to you.
you’re exiled.
your velvet threats,
your sugar-coated grip –
banished.
it hurts me more
than you think.
but this time, it’s final.
because i’m not ready
to see the aftermath
if it isn’t.

I strolled the coast
Sun soaked my shoulders
Warmth spread up through my feet
from the sun baked sand, that
I felt, more than heard, as a subtle susurration of
    sand that shifted under my soles
    surged between my toes
A wave wandered out of the ocean
kissed my feet with briny tears
caressed and stole the silt from beneath my soles
subtly shifted my standing
sailed gently back to sea
My tensions eased with its withdrawal

A gentle bracing breeze arose
condensed to prickles on my arms
Awoke hairs to stand alert
Pungent ocean air and spray stung yet soothed
    my parched lips
shocked my nose with that smell
    of calm after a storm
I was a part of this entire panoply
I was part of this expanse
I was part of this
I was part of now

I glanced back toward where I must return

A titanic wave crashed against my back
blasted me to the sand
buffeted me cruelly
smote away my breath
ground grit into my palms
forced flashbacks that
sand is coarse and abrasive
    as well as tranquil and warm
I struggled and was beaten down
    and beaten down

Eventually
achingly
haltingly
I pulled up and gasped for air
sputtered crude and briny water
brushed the sand from my face
saw the sanguine cuts and scrapes
then heard their clamorous lament
that crested as wave upon wave buried me
and mockingly failed to wash away
    any part of my hurt

Blood or perhaps brine wept down my cheeks
and I had already been bleeding
from old wounds and cuts and bruises
unhealed and untended
and those barely healed ripped asunder
These shouts of agony drowned out any new tenderness

Will I always be bleeding?
Will I ever heal?
Will I ever feel safe again?
Will I ever even get all the sand from my hair?
At any rate, I must shortly keep walking on.

i eat,
and it eats with me.
i love,
and it sits between our mouths.
i sleep,
and it coils beside me,
breathing slower than death.

i thought time
would soften it—
turn it into mist
or memory.
but it is bone,
still lodged.
and splintering.

no one sees it anymore.
only i
feel the rot under my ribs,
the way my voice cracks
on ordinary words.

i live,
but not all the way.
i laugh,
but not from the center.

grief wears my face now.
and sometimes
i can’t remember
what i looked like
before it moved in.

this land was his cathedral—
he walked it like scripture,
hands buried in the soil
like he could forgive it
for everything.

but i cannot.

i return barefoot,
each step a needle
of memory.
this place opens its arms
and i flinch.

the room has a new bed now,
but the shape of that day
still lingers—
the soft collapse of his chest,
my ear pressed
to the drumbeat ending.
the air stilled.
the house exhaled.
and didn’t inhale again.

i sleep among ghosts
with no names,
only weather.
wind that hisses
through broken fences,
shadows caught in the corners
like secrets he never told me.

he loved this place
so fiercely
it must have hurt—
maybe that’s the only way
he knew how.

i keep trying
to separate the man
from the ground
he bled his days into.
but it’s all roots now.
it’s all entangled.
and i lie here,
still listening
for a heart that isn’t mine.

Of all the things I never said,
I wish I’d told her
“I love you”
before he did.

Her eyes were
the most exquisite shade
of cerulean blue.
Her daughter’s are too—

I remember
the day she arrived,
the day you slipped away, too.

Lost on October third,
two thousand twenty-two...
Could you have stayed
if I’d told you?

Every day then—
and now—
I wish I’d gone
to see you.

First thing I did was run from the scene,
left the old streets and all they’d seen.
She said goodbye — I froze in place,
then turned before tears showed on my face.

Then came the nights I caved to the haze,
lines on the table, weeks in a daze.
Each hit a way to not recall —
but nothing numbed the fall at all.

I crossed state lines, left all I knew,
wore smiles I borrowed and played them through.
But even then, she stayed inside —
a quiet weight I couldn’t hide.

So I left it all, the past, the place,
the life I built around her trace.
Not to explore the world or start anew,
but to survive a life that ended with you.

When red apple roses rise from my head,
Know that the earth has embraced me, now dead.
I'll rest where roots wrap my bones in the ground,
And bloom through my silence, no longer bound.

Their petals still whisper the things I once said;
In death, I will part with the cage of my heart.
So grieve in my garden, but know it’s my home,
For beauty will grow where my love ever roams.

I once tried to become the sky.
Let the wind take what was left of me.
Let my only legacy be:
“The Girl Who Once Flew.”

I once tried to become the sky.
But heaven was heavier than I imagined.
I thought it would make sense—
I hoped the air would catch me,
that it would hold me as someone that meant something.

But gravity had other plans.
I didn’t fly.
I fell.
And I didn’t even realize I was falling until I looked up and saw I was at rock bottom.

Yet there was something grounding about falling.
It was satisfying to know
that I’ve fallen and couldn’t fall any more further.

Instead I laid there.
My legs and arms spread,
still bracing for a concrete I already hit.

I looked up at the clouds with envy.
Not because they floated—
but because they’ll never know what it’s like to fall.

I once tried to become the sky.
But I wrote this instead.
So I’d have something I left behind.