We're surprised when our 93 year old grandparents die of old age.
And we don't seem to see failing fires
in our relationships until
the Passion for battle
is the only thing keeping the couple together.
I'm no exception; my dad died three years ago
and I still laugh at the joke he told 3 times,
5 years removed. I still hope to make fun of his beloved Maple Leafs.
But, I guess I'm saying that
some couples just need
to alleviate their molten skin
from the furies of battle.

I know that fire
fades to ember,
and that ember
cools to coal,
and that coal
is pushed to diamond
with enough pressure.

Sleet seems to fall in sheets.
It covers all, sometimes even a blooming
rose on a cold Spring (or warm Winter) day.
New life, now passed but still preserved.
It seems to evade death,
only until the sun returns from
behind the clouds. The icy casket melts.
It leaves behind a wilted image of
circumstance.
Some flowers wilt too soon
only to be remembered as gemstones
that brought
colour
to a glazed wasteland.

It's so easy
to write while grief spews from
the greatest depths of your character.
Everyone, too,
needs to read about the heartbreak,
the lingering heartache that makes
life decisions feel like clouds.
And it's so easy to give in
and put pitied pen to paper,
and the beautiful only
blossoms with agony, angst, and anger.
Infrequently, though,
can you really find the blood curdling words
that turn ache into anything but
agony. Only then
is a poet born.

Someone you know dies. Or someone that you know has someone die. You apologize, as if it's your doing. You send them your thoughts, whatever that means, and it does nothing to relieve their grief or your own sorrow. You do it anyways.
They're in a long-term rainy day and your thoughts and prayers do nothing. You say the same things each time, even after having gone through a similar even in your own life. And the cycle goes on.
Grief fades through time and
your or their loved one continues on only as a memory. The sorry and the prayers fill an awkward gap where we feel something should be said.
I see no solution, it's just strange.

"No one asks to die" she tells me.
I listen, eyes glistening as she pains
even just to feign an ounce of joy.
"And no one asks to be born,"
I answered curtly.
She laughed.
I thought it was odd, but decided
to continue on
"And no one asks for a peanut allergy.
No
one asks for a midnight shiver or
a hungry night or
a lifetime of accidents
or cancer."
And she stopped laughing. And she
looked at me, all serious, eyes shining,
and she sneezed.
Debris flew all through the room,
and a little got in my eye.
We laughed, and the hospital bed that held us up finally gave way to something
important. We stopped looking
towards my bitter closing end, towards
the tunnel and the light, and we
spent thirty seconds giggling about a poorly timed explosion of nasal debris.
Thank you, dust particle,
for a second of anything
but silence.