I've spent years trying to settle with my past.
I have sat with grief,
the most intense grief,
of people and timelines
lost,
for long enough to know
that it's not going anywhere.
I'll always have to hold it.

I could spend a million lifetimes
waiting for anger and rage
to build,
to eat me
and everyone around me alive.
But the anger and the rage
never find me.
And I don't think they ever will.

I could lie awake at night,
with heart wrenching desires, queued
of all the apologies I should have heard.
I could sob,
endlessly,
(like I used to)
while I long for all the closure I should have.
But in my dreams, I never find my way back.
And I don't think I ever will.

I could keep looking for someone to give it to,
once I find it.
But truly,
I don't think I ever will.
And I think I earned that.

Don't lie down in the space between grief and possibility.
It won't ever bring the peace you think it will.
Still, I sleep beside the idea
that if I don't move toward one,
I'll never have to betray the other.

Frozen,
but not numb.
Paralyzed,
but not hopeless.

It is both fine and dramatic - gaslighting myself.
A quiet storm fueled by my own undoing,
just waiting
to wake.

I don't know what's more difficult:
watching you leave
or knowing that I told you to

It’s everything
and it’s nothing.
I don’t know whether to crumple it up and throw it away
or hold onto it until it gains some value.
I have come so far
making no progress at all.

my heart is a museum of you
and everyone here knows it