Sometimes
I write to you
when I’m sad
but today,

I write to you from
all the
love and joy
that is
coursing through me.

From the place of opportunity
and
abundance I find myself in.

I miss you

but I no longer feel
consumed
by this longing.

I feel excited
and oddly
rejuvenated.

Dickens:
"the pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again"

And it is the meeting
again
I find myself focused on.

The pain
of being
torn
away,

although there

is now more akin to
a faint smell that lingers on
well past when
you've left
the room.

This lingering reminds me I’m human.
And for that I am grateful.

Because
no pain holds
me
in its grips
anymore,

for I have turned myself
into water that easily slips
through
the cage meant to hold me.

-

Know that I am sending you love from my heart and warmth from my soul.

I hope this provides you
strength
and
shelter,
however brief.

Till we meet,
M

I burned your letters
and finally
felt the warmth of your words.

Braid the rain into my hair
and let the clouds stitch these wounds
as I lay under this canopy of gray
Writing stories about nonsensical things
maybe you can find something of substance
from my exchanges with the moon

and if the stories are too hidden for you
look deep into the shadow
cast by my drooping eyelids
somewhere in the exhaustion
are secrets I have left for you

my dear,
can i call you that?
it's not applicable, but carries weight
our fingertips no longer touch
our mouths no longer smile
too full of vows left unsaid

let me say them now
i loved you
i loved you and i felt trapped by you
not by a fault of yours
the desert was calling
i could not resist

you know how i am
forever chasing the sun
i think i may have gotten too close
the wax on my wings is burning
bringing you down with me
sorry

© 2021 benedict

I
It’s not what you and I expected
The opposite actually
Nights are a lot darker out here
The dozen spindly legs of insects crawl
Across my foot to prey on some poor roach
But I still talk to you when you aren’t listening
Out past the fields of nothingness and livestock,
Where the car headlights freeze Armadillos
And crack their shells like eggs in a pan
I will wait for that day
The day you come to me and I tell you
That dream still waits for you

II
I can’t drive without grimacing
The roadkill piles atop each other
Deer, boars, Coyotes
When it's all done
They leave the same red mark
You probably don’t see this in the city
The black eyes of an animal punctured
By a white gem-like dot shining
Before sunrise, the body is coated in fresh dew
I’ll stay where I am, waiting for you

III
There’s a dysfunctional couple
that fights upstairs above me
Nearby the cars race for their kind of high
The backlights behind the building of a restaurant
Makes its way around the corners of my walls
I thought I saw you, again
Looking from outside my window
Walking past me on the sidewalk
Opening the door from within my closet
Listening when I wasn’t talking
Did you see me break glass at my feet?
The hydrogen peroxide sting reminds me
To remember you once waited for me

I want you to know me by my handwriting
Let’s start licking envelopes again just to say hello
I’ll sit at my desk drinking coffee in the morning
A stack of letters in the drawer ******* with a string
You know I would keep every one of yours
Even if you lived next door or wrote me every day
I don’t know how to throw anything away

I was never an open letter.

I am that mail that the postman had lost while sending other letters.

I am that letter that was never received.

dear basil,

the future is a social construct
i know people are ***** about it
but it's going to be okay

give yourself time

<3,
basil

i write out the letters and
i send them without shaky hands
is this it? is this growth?