Seventy two Crows
have come to bid you goodbye
dressed in mourning clothes

I could sentimentalise,
throw flowers on your memory
agonise the opportunity to part with any gratuity,
wish you could see every success
through meaningless desire to conjure what never was
what never will be.

As you ebbed away to degeneration,
every strip of dignity
was a drop in the temperature of your cold stare
that epitomised our tenuous connection.

Even if truth be told,
would there be anyone to understand
how you created something so arbitrarily
only to derivatively destroy it?

Her sadness was loud
she would cry herself out
bang her hands against the walls

she would scream asking why
to the heavens
asking why
to the glass of water still full

Her grief was like a storm
encompassing everything else
it was wet
there was no escape from it

I could just
stare
at her
at the photo
at the candles

my sadness was quiet
I couldn't cry
the tears would dry in my eyelashes
I would just lay there

asking why
to the shadows in the altar
asking why
to my memory
asking why
I couldn't remember

                 his voice
                 his hands
the last time I saw him
the last time I heard
                 his voice

The lights are the only thing I can offer
to help him
to help her
                  to

                  remember
even if it's just now
I only have the guilt
because death did us part
and all the love I didn't know I had
doesn't have anywhere to go

I see you so often in my dreams,
working magic by being close it seems. It's hard to believe you've gone away, that I'll never get to see you, with my hair all grey. But I'll never have to decide for you which treatment you may need or have to put you in a home because your mind had seized. I always worried that someday I'd explain that I need to take away your keys, and that you'd look at me in pain. Those are the only positives I can muster with your loss, I can list those with a half smile because I'd feel uncomfortable being boss. Love for me in this world, went down dramatically when you left, for who loves unconditionally and who knows best? I can only weep and mourn you just like I had with mom and hope to god I'll see you both, in the ever after beyond. I am so very thankful, been lucky enough to have had such a loving and awesome dad.

How do you measure the once-was?  The invisible?  The void?  

                                 The ache in my heart is not physiological,
                                   although it may feel like it sometimes is.  

I can measure the words I write,
                       the words that get stuck in my throat.  
The boxes of belongings left over.  (You can narrow down a person’s
                                                               physical life by how many trips it
                                                                ­                          takes to Goodwill.)
How many songs can I now not stand?  
How many scents are now trigger trapdoors?  

Shall I count the number of times I’ve thought of you today?  
No ******* thank you.  
                                          Measuring is for the birds.  
                                                        ­                                    The doctors and
                                                                ­                                the scientists.  

I keep reaching inside and pulling out my still beating,
                                          but rotting and decaying heart
                                        only to be told it’s perfectly fine.  
I refuse to be gaslit on my grief anymore.

We all know that life can thrive in the most inhospitable of places.
                                             Plants grow from volcanic soil.
                                             Bioluminescence crawls beneath
                                               immense pressure on the ocean floor.
                                             Microbes most likely thrive below the icy,
                                                        radioact­ive surface of Europa.
We all know that life—love—perseveres.  
                                         ­                                 It’s nothing new.

But we don’t talk about
                                            how ******* hard that actually is.  
That’s what the strengths perspective is for.  
What resilience gives name to.  

But what if I don't want to?  What if,
                                                                ­  for today,
                                                                ­                     I’d rather the **** not?  
Is that okay?                           Is that allowed?  
That today I'm the vinca vine dying on the ledge?  
Withered up and not drinking any more water.  

Today, I am every succulent that I’ve ever accidentally killed.  
Today, I am excess formaldehyde.  I am a brain floating in a bell jar,
                        undulating in an existence that is an ethical quagmire.
Today, I am in limbo.  Purgatory.  Stasis and static.  
Suspended upside down in a frozen wasteland, Dante style.  

Tomorrow, I will thaw.  
                                Rise from the soil fist first.