guilt and shame
eating to blame
lack of control
lack of tame
the food comes in
the fat puffs out
if only cold turkey
didn’t sound so good right now

I know the mirror cannot lie
Yet I hope that somehow
Just this once
It is mistaken

I pray the girl I see
Looking back at me
Is not a reflection
But a figment of imagination

Her lonely eyes
Her wilted youth
Forgotten grace
Sorrowful face

Surely that empty shell
The mere remnant of a soul
Couldn't really be
All that's left of me

She carried the weight of the world
And was applauded for her strength

But the one meant to listen chose to speak
The one who spoke told lies
instead of truth

Lies that broke her trust

Shattered her heart

Crushed her soul

The weight of the world
was light as a feather
next to the weight of words,

they fell heavy as an anvil

Life is loss, pain
You move on, push past it
You write subroutines to deal
To ease, to distract, to bypass
Again and again until
You are more subroutine
Than you are yourself
And you wonder
At what point did pain
Become more relevant
To life
Than living?

I only know
how to write

sad things
sad songs
sad brings along

the anger,
the angst from my teens
my spiritual upbringing
pummeled by dead things
in my soul

my boy only knows
how to love
sad me,
bad me,

contain me
in the rigidity
of the cruelty I imbue
on myself

the capacity
for sociability
has fled and flown
south like a snowbird

I think I’m spiraling
it’s so exciting
knowing that the only
one I want to know
finds me so inspiring

go find another muse
while I tear into
this great deep blue

she walks past the threshold
a meaningless spat echoes forever

she went past the horizon
into darkness

but her visage stayed—
a moment held infinity

and red I saw,
raged endlessly

until her image faded
past the horizon
into the darkness

Since you have been gone
         I miss your company
                      Your warmth
                                   Your humour

Now you are no longer here
         I miss your laughter
                        Your intellect
                                      Your passion

Because you have been taken away
          I miss your caring nature
                          Your artistic abilities
                                        Your positive attitude

As you can never return
           I will miss your hugs
                            Your kisses
                                         Your love

I miss you, you were my wife, my life my reason to be
           I miss having someone with confidence in me
                                 I miss you
                                            I miss you.

I am holding a love
with no destination.
It floods me without warning,
fills me with purpose,
With all the fire of arrival, and nothing waiting on the other side.

No, he is not
waiting at the gate.
He’s nowhere.
And this love,
it’s too vast for my body,
too loud for sleep,
too loyal
to walk away.

This grief,
this relentless, boundless
love was meant to land
in his heart.
Always.
Instead it circles inside me,
wings beating
against bone,
a bird
that can’t find
a place to perch.

I can’t destroy it.
I won’t.
It’s the last thing I have
that still knows
his shape.

But it’s heavy.
It trembles.
It begs for release.
And I am breaking
under the weight
of what cannot be given.

I remember your paws going from softly thundering up to crashing down the hallway,
and every game of chase you grew too old for.
I know about the ferocious but tender decision to set you down.
This time there is no need to struggle to get up.
Your wobbly memory survives in the rugs that were put down to help you walk again.

Steel pan in roadside dirt,
just beyond Exit 11: Quartzsite,
sun bouncing off like a flare.

Handle loose, rim dented,
but not ruined;
still whole enough.

It felt like one I swung
at Tomaso’s,
sweating
through the rush,
that night
we plated sixty covers
in under an hour.

Me, this pan,
were used
the way hard things are:
oiled, scrubbed,
flame-kissed and blackened.
Something thick stuck once,
then let go.

I lifted it,
right hand curved
around the handle
as though it never left.
Some things remember you
even when you forget yourself.

I set it in the backseat,
beside the blanket and bag.
thought I’d clean it up,
tighten the handle,
set it on flame,
hang it by a stove again.

I don’t believe in ghosts,
but I believe in steel,
in things that hold the heat
and give it back to you.