I always take pictures on the day they leave.
To remember the strange feeling
of loss and freedom
in a single moment.
Funny, how the sky is always bursting with blue
and the birds chirping harmoniously.

As if even nature is trying to remind me
to look outside myself.
"I'm right here", it screams.

It tells me
I musn't look far to come across artistry.
The cardinals, the bluebirds
The vibrant hydrangeas lining the streets.

The black-eyed susans are liberated and free,
and so am I if I wish to be.

On Monday I’ll write of mundane things.
The broken escalator, the paperwork that awaits me, or the way the door creeks as you come home.

Tuesdays are dedicated to tomorrows.
To aspirations and the good fortune of yesterday's broken dreams.

Wednesdays are all about weather.
My god the symbolism
Of rain and sunshine and Mother Earth.

On Thursdays I’ll write of thinking of you.
How I find you in everything,

How really it’s you who I’m writing for all the days of the week.

Fridays will be for forgiveness.
This is the day that requires the most work.

And Saturdays will be about sorrow.
How even when it’s not hurting, it’s hurting.

And Sundays will be about startovers and fresh beginnings.
Not because I want them but the world keeps handing them to me
Even when I am too stubborn to ask for it.

There is scaffolding all around me
And there are holes in places where holes are not meant to be.
I am dusty,
Soot-covered,
from the renovations of my former selves.

The concrete is still wet
And the porch isn’t done yet.
My roof is weathered
And the leaks are recurrent.
I told you there were holes in places where holes were not meant to be.

I can’t stop letting weather shift me,
For my foundation is shaky to begin with.

But today I stripped the leaves from the gutters
And finished the front door.
I promise the bare bones are good.

I am a work in progress
And I have come to learn that that is a wonderful thing.

It was a Wednesday and you were sorry.
I had found that coffee stopped tasting as good and rain became oddly ugly.
Puddles, which once held a sense of charm, lost their grandeur.
Apologies were routinely part of our dialogues.
Slowly they stopped making sense.
Like alphabet soup, the letters lost their meaning when they were jumbled in such chaos.
I do think you meant them, but I stopped wanting them.
I just wanted coffee to be rich again, and rain to bring gladness.
I wanted a full-bodied life back.