Wednesday, May 8, 2024

I Drift in Directions Where You Aren’t

It’s been 5,533 days since your time clock stopped. 
I try not to think about your absence, 
but today’s your birthday,
which makes a difference.


You had 22,959 days, not a second more.

In the grand scheme, it isn’t much. 

It wasn’t enough. 

I want to celebrate your spirit, your heart,

the times we weren’t apart, 

but sometimes it’s too hard to remember the good 

when you’re not here anymore. 


I had 10,834 days with you,

but I’ve lived a third of my life

wondering what you’d think

about songs, music, movies, me, 

my successes, my failures, my sadness,

my joy, and everything in between.


I knew someday I’d have to live

without your advice or you reminding me

of who I can be, 

but I never thought it’d be before I was thirty.


Now I drift in directions

I hope will lead me the right way,

never quite sure of my footing

or my plans

or of who I am. 


I just keep going,

hoping someday

you can tell me I did okay

without you.


Wednesday, January 4, 2023

All that Remains

 If you pulled back the black velvet
draped heavily over my heart,
you'd find nothing but emptiness
surrounded by bone. 

If you dove into the darkest depths
of my mind's sea of memories,
there wouldn't be anything to see - 
just you all alone.

If you look close enough,
there's nothing here - 
just the shadow of what was
before life got in the way.

When There's No You

I believed, hoped even, 
that soon you'd get better, 
leave the sterile walls
of hospital rooms
behind. 

You did, 
but you left me, too.

It was morning
on a Monday
when the prepositions
I used in front of "you"
changed
from "with" to "without".

Who knew adding 3 letters
would ruin so much?

Who am I now
without you?

I still don't know
fourteen years later.


Friday, September 9, 2022

Our Last Drive

 
The hot evening wind whips your hair about
as your hide-the-eyes sunglasses block out the dust and sun.
You look like a Hollywood icon, or maybe some Bond girl on the run.

The top’s down on the midnight blue Miata you picked and paid for yourself
just in time for the Cancer to make you a passenger in yet another aspect of your life.

It’s been a long winter
with chemo, radiation, and heart palpitations that were really myocardial infarctions and a sign we didn’t have much time left.

We didn’t know it but that last drive was it – the last of a life with still too many days left unlived.
We swoosh around the curves like we’re riding waves
though we were always both too afraid to go out past the breakers.
The sand closer to shore always felt safer, even with jellyfish stings and crab claw toe pinches.

A dusty rose falls all around us as day gives way to night.
The mid-March humidity dissipates with the sunset and we hit a straightaway of smooth sailing.
No cars are ahead in the distance or in the rear view –
just our two high beams breaking up the fading light.

This road, this asphalt sea, is ours as the night rolls in behind us.
We miss our turn twice but keep on driving.
People are at the house waiting, but you’re not ready to turn around.
After all, the streetlights haven’t come on yet.

The darkness is a high tide rolling in above us as we sink beneath the surface in silence.
We know the road is going to end sooner than we expected or hoped.
We had no idea the next day this moment and you would be another memory in my mind to hold onto rather than  your tan, freckled hand with knobby knuckles and slender fingers I’d know anywhere.

We lose time as we drive along the back roads of our lives.
We don’t dare interrupt this moment where what will be and what has been don’t exist – just what is.

I steal a peek at you, huddled next to me, arms wrapped tight, holding yourself in one piece against the cooling air. I switch on the heat, redirect the blast to our feet so it isn’t lost in the night, and watch happiness spread across your lips, cheeks, your body as if you were standing in the bright warmth of a high noon, deep south July sun.

This snapshot of you lives in perfect polaroid detail in my memory palace among the many shrines I’ve built to you.

Eventually, we make our way back home, and though we didn’t know you were leaving the next day, we both knew the second we locked blue-eye-to-blue-grey-eye there would be no more top-down drives in our future.

Sometimes I can still feel the hum in my bones of the tires meeting the road, riding into darkness like we did so many years ago – you sitting by my side, forever glamorous in sunburst yellow and leopard print.

I’ll never know what it’s like to live so loudly without ever saying a word.

Tuesday, March 15, 2022

We Live Twice

 Egyptians believed we died twice.

First, our bodies withered into dust
and nourished the spaces around us.  

Then, our spirits slipped away
when others stopped saying our names.

I believe we live twice. 

Once until our hearts stop.
And once until our memories are lost - 
not just our names, not just our legacies,
but the rooms of our loved ones' memory palaces
we reside in until oblivion.

When we are no longer remembered,
we are no more.

It may seem the same - 
living and dying with the grave
and your name.

But it isn't - 
it'll never be about how you die.
It's about your life,
and how you lived it.

May your second life
be immortal.


Sunday, February 6, 2022

Burning Out

No one sees how dark it is
because I turn on every light
when they come around
like this is how I live
the minutes in my life. 

It's easier to put on a show
than lie to make them feel
better
safe
or like we're all okay.

I'd rather pretend,
make it seem okay
than say the words out loud.

The lies are always easiest
to believe, to hear
but never to tell.

The truth is
the lights are burning out
one-by-one,
and soon
you'll see
what it's like for me.


Was It Real?

Do you carry me with you
in your memory palace,
or am I lost in the sea of thoughts
you refuse to think again?

I believed I mattered to you,
that 23 years meant something
and you couldn't do to me
what you did to everyone else.

But it's been almost 4 years
since I've heard your laugh,
your excitement about new projects,
your worries about problems
you helped create.

Did I imagine it?

The heartache reminds me
it was real
even if you try to pretend
it wasn't.

I was there.
I remember.
Do you?