Now, I cherish your absence,
yet something about it feels untrue
Once, I wept for every moment near you, mourning the space you filled too soon

I begged for distance, craved the quiet, ached for days untouched by you
Yet silence lingers, rich and heavy,
like a ghost that won't undo

I swore I'd never miss your presence,
never yearn for what once pained
Yet even freedom bears the sorrow
of a loss that still remains

weight.
that’s all I feel now.

the weight of silence.
absence.  
thoughts like boots
stuck in mud up to my knees.

thirteen thousand nights
pounding out of my chest like a riot mob
choking on my life
and staring down twenty thousand more.
****.

the searing void
of an ancient sugared kiss
sends tears down my face
like tiny iron weights—
a silent guillotine.
you’re so far away now.
or maybe I am.

dusting off dreams
like they’re old pictures
and setting them back on the shelf
in this violet desert.
mirage or memory?
who knows.

I’ve become a warm corpse
mumbling “no”
to the tired lives that want to ride me
like an old horse
one limp away from being glue.

who is there to tell?
who the hell would listen?
who’d step foot
onto the interstate of my heart
dodging semis
and roadkill potpourri?

doesn’t matter.
the dreams look clean again.
and that’s enough
to keep the lights on in the cell
for another thousand nights.

so keep that duster handy.
go back to sleep.

these nights are hungry.
and they’re not going to eat themselves.

I spent my whole life searching for love

As a child I did not have enough of it,
So I always had a hole.

An absence which I thought I must find someone to fill.

Only now I know that absence of love, that gaping hole, cannot be repaired by another

Only I can refill it, only I can allow it to be full.

Only I can love myself the way I needed
all those years before.

In the hush between heartbeats,
I hear the echo of your laughter
a memory not yet made.

You, a whisper in the wind,
me, chasing shadows of a smile.

If you feel this too,
leave a word behind
let’s write our story together.

"This is the compassion I'm willing to give!"

This is the compassion you're liable to get.

Silence. Stillness. Absence.

I drown myself in tasks,
pour coffee five times a day,
so even in those brief seconds,
my hands are not idle, my mind not still.

I raise the music to a scream,
to drown the voice that gnaws,
the voice that sounds like you.

I write and write and write,
so I do not reach for you,
so my fingers find ink instead of absence.

I do the things I do not wish to do,
fill the silence with motion,
but still
you slip into my sleep,
a ghost pressing its weight upon my chest.