Oh how I wonder,
How Napoleon felt on that ship,
Seeing the coast of his beloved France recede into the distance,
Never to be seen again?

How did it feel,
When the Emperor stared out,
Upon the ocean and horizon
The salted spray that kissed St Helena,
Also kissing his brow?

In those last days,
Did he recall his beloved France?
Did he visit his men and subjects,
Did he see it in his mind?

In those final hours,
Did he hear the people chant,
Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!
Did he hear his army sing Le Chant du Départ one final time?

Upon the arrival of that grande finale,
The final moment,
The End,
Did he think of François and Léon as much as Josephine?
Did he feel that laurel-wreath upon his head one last time?

Was he scared?

wading through the faces as they fade into the portraits
swallowed by the room of fresh pressed funeral suits
cold eyes boring holes into the back of my head
all the boring jokes i've told to best dressed mourning guests

the rest, my best guess
arrived to celebrate your death
no one thinks to bring flowers for the living
april showers bring may flowers
but you pushed daisies into my hands
when you're left holding the bouquet
you won’t stop to smell the roses

Don't mourn for the dead,

grieve only for the living --


Do it for yourself.

Do not mourn for me in sombre colours
black and grey was not my way to be
do not drown me in sorrowing hymns
praise me with the tunes of larks
I always loved their spiral song in flight
celebrate the spirit that was me
forget the dark
embrace my light

How does one lose a creature gracefully…?

Is it possible to just be okay with a quick goodbye under the hum of those awful fluorescent lights? Would it have been easier, kinder, softer, if the lights were lamps scattered about the space, yellow and murmuring? When does the gut-wrneching tightening stop? Will I ever let the sadness of it leave my chest?

Sitting in this complacent grief even months after it all is kind

I know that the grief will let me cry and I know that when I do, it doesn’t judge me for my “I wish things could go back to normal.” Because regardless of how familiar the New Ways become, it still isn’t the same. I am bookended by these two creatures that have and continue to adore the Earth I walk on. But the Old Ways stick with us for longer than we’d maybe like.

But in filling that little empty nook, the small nest where a dog named Nelson used to lie, I’ve forced myself to grow, to become changed.

My adult life started when I got Nelson, and it started again when I had to let him slip through my trembling fingers. And it continues on with this new creature named Franklin, who sits just to the left of that Nelson shaped divot.

Loving things that leave you utterly shattered is what makes us so mendable, forgetful, endlessly desperate for devotion…

The whole scene will replay in 10 years time, and I will be even more ruined then.

When I lay in bed
It's your scent
Soaked and washed over me
Your arms like shelter
Keeping the day away
Because lord knows I've needed you
More recently than before
Days spanding into weeks then months
Hunger screaming in my pit
Dark and stormy
Are the skies that hover over
But when I lay
You are there
You are always there
In memories I keep you alive
But outside our bed
Your body is where it's always been
Back at the cemetery
Where I had to say goodbye

It's sad to see when the ladybugs mourn
Somber dark faces with whites turned down
Trudging along forlorn and lost
For they mourn for the love of the world
They feel the cracking of the great pines
As they give the last ***** to their lovers
They sense the splitting of creeks
Two lives to leave and lead separately
As the bubbling water gets faster and clear
They mourn the day coming to an end
And they mourn the cold of the night
They feel the sadness of a courting buck
Instinctually driven but thoughts vacant
Individuality non existent, in an evolutionary daze
Predators chase prey and the rest is nil
They cary their spots as sinful stains of the world
Feeling through their sextupled appendages
Every feeling, consideration, entrenched to a wing

To feel enough, is to know what you have.
And it's hard to see it, when your eyes are only on the prize.

I'm a Feminist
But
My ovaries are in pain.

I'm a woman
But
I don't feel connected to my main vein.
I'm bleeding in places much deeper than my-

I'd say the word
But i'll refrain.

Instead of being taught to embrace,
I've learned to drown
In
The
Pain
Of
Being
A
woman.

Soft
Weak
Instead of
strong
And unique.

Instead of taking agency,
I'm treated like an antique.
Fragile,
Even though i've survived
Everything men told me...

(I'll leave you to ponder but
won't describe. )

I love being a woman,
But it's a love/hate relationship
I can't lie. 
I take pride
But when my head hits the pillow,
I do cry.

In fact, I mourn.

I mourn the excitement society had for me when I was born.
Now i'm rejected,
Because of children i haven't ejected,
Penises i haven't erected,
a husband i haven't selected.

A pariah if you will,
But i have my own will.
Something women are shamed for because we feel,
Feel the need to take back our power
Because if we don't,
Someone else will,
Tell us
What to wear,
How to heal,
**** our souls until we cant feel,
Leaving us empty
Alone and afraid
Only to arrest us for a feminist parade.
I love being a woman
But my heart is in pain,
I find solace in the depths of a woman,
So I know i'll remain...

I just realized: I am in mourning. I am mourning the loss of my life right now.
A trans man posted that he was mourning the loss of the boyhood that he never had.
I am mourning the loss of a gender-free childhood I never had. I am mourning that I have to cover who I am. I mourn what I could have but don’t. I mourn.
I have lost so much time. For almost a year I have known I am genderqueer, but have kept silent at home. I am mourning what I could have had if the world had been easier; if the world had been kinder, gentler to me. If only the world could show love.
I feel my identity is unloved in my home. I feel it is highly politicized, dehumanized, unreal, not palpable in the air which we all breathe at the dinner table together.
I AM REAL I shout! See me for I am so real. Hear and feel me for my skin is true, my mind is true; I am real and I sit here with you.
I am mourning the loss of a childhood I never had. I mourn the loss of kindness I never had.
Please be kind. I promise I will always be kind.

In my arms, my dear child, you are not a political piece, you are not a distant figure - distant yet still held so closely in my arms and cradled like a child. There will be none of that. You are simply one whom I love, and I am yours in return.
Please love me for who I am. I am only human, I can only take so much.
I don't want to be your figure, I want to be your child. There is such a big difference.