What I tell myself while
Asking,
Covering my tracks that
Show I'm suicidal,
The pretty lies that cover up
The cuts I caused myself.
Wanting to cease existing
To the point no one remembers my name.
Hate and Numb
but i'm fine.
Please I just need to talk
I say to the darkness, It ignores me. You ignore me.
You were Always
never
There.

Its hard to move forward
When i dont know
Where forward is

So worried
Always
That i may misplace a step
Sometimes
I forget to take one

The rocks will wear away
Trees will burn to ash
Lakes will evaporate

Nothing stays

Buildings will deteriorate
Clouds will pass by
The tide will go out

Nothing stays

Fires will burn down
Leaves will fall
Snow will melt

Nothing stays

People move on
Joy will leave
You have left

Nothing stays

**Everything leaves

I'd suffer four long years
Before I set a letter on the page...
I'd sob a hundred times,
Waking from repeated dreams of you,
The daughter I have lost,
Running into my arms, and
Our tears mingling
Over the wasted years,
Only to realize that dreams
Are only dreams
To remind me of my longing,
Not yours.

If I were to write you a poem,
I'd tell you that sorrow cuts me still,
Even though my heart is turning stone,
That parts of me are fading out to gray...
That family isn't whole while one of us is still
Away.

If I were to write you a poem,
I'd say the old stool you loved
Stands waiting,
Your handwriting still claiming it
As yours,
Though you have left it here
These years.

But how shall I write a poem
When the leaves of spring are glittering,
And when meadowlarks are singing,
And work calls me out to take the agony away?

Perhaps in fall,
When leaves begin their grim descents,
And winds drive chilling clouds of gray,
As mournful sounds of geese in southern vees
Cast gloom upon the dwindling days,
Perhaps in fall I'll take my pen,
And try to write a poem for you
Again.

My foggy mouth tries to hide behind rain-smacked glass.
She says goodbye with complacent stares
and with the sudden flash of an umbrella.

The red of her dress doesn't belong in my life.
Each of her strides carry my resentment and weariness,
alongside the melting grey of the Seattle skyline.
So, I don't yell for her or imagine our lives,
as the windshield wipers sweep her image, out of sight, but not out of my head.

I return home, the half I was for decades.
The tread of my shoe mashing bluegrass,
digging up seeds and insect carcass, with every step.
Storm-soaked magazine subscriptions lay on the porch,
and her name is tattooed on every one.

The dog lays on the carpet, ears and eyes perking up at me.
And he knows he's truly alone, because I'll depend on him.

Eggshell kitchen cabinets are jammed with her:
Vermilion, saffron, and burgundy glasses hold
half-empty hangings of golden flat draft,
keeping her day-old, dried saliva smothered on the edges,
like transparent ocean waves dying on a glass coast
and buried in the bottom of the sun-pierced vortex.

What I couldn't realize is that the cup was me:
marked in so many ways,
letting decaying memories burrow and stay.

Tottering across her farmhouse floor,
Fixing breakfast,
Baking muffins,
Frying liver and onions,
Caring for her "boys";

Sitting on her purple walking chair,
Asking how the cattle are,
And what I'm going out today to do;
She's crippled up, but she's not through.

She barely has the "oomph" these days
To lift her legs into the truck,
Her body hunched over,
Head barely at the window level,
To ride to town to see the doctor
Or go to church and wait
While I shop and run my errands,
Before we head back home again.

Things move slowly now as time grows short;
The walker crawls across the floor;
Simple tasks become her tedious chores,
But still she cooks and cleans between short naps.
She worries more, but I have watched her praying,
Sitting by her bed, hair up in a cap,
Squinting hard to read her Bible,
Lips moving as she goes to prayer...
My name and many others whispered there.