POEM - Warm Grief

That first minute of knowing you were

no longer a living piece of this world,

I don’t think I even thought to breathe

A salty ocean of disbelief, instantaneously

washed all the color from anything

I was left looking at;

alone in the potential company of billions

And, even now, when I tire of seeing

that bleached future you don’t get to,

I close my eyes, and too easily find

the still-vivid room I made for our memories

  

There’s a record within, playing songs

once recorded on my heartstrings

There’s a couch upon which I’m allowed

to believe you’re still happily holding my hand

There’s a scent in the air of your kitchen,

and my youth; that unbreakable bond

And there’s your smile, ready to greet me

in every impossible corner

Though the gray sunlight forever threatens

to strip this place of what I’ve assured myself

I’ll never forget, it’s the ever-flooding floor

which has begun to worry me

  

Hello… Please don’t be gone

Please let your headstone be a misunderstanding

Let me wake from this agony,

and find that you merely got lost

while playing hide-and-go-seek

with a characteristic amount of passion

Or, at the least, do not force me forward

within the ceaseless chorus of reminders,

regarding your departure

—not while the past still feels so close

—not while my mind can still reconstruct you

with each of my aging senses

  

What if I love the wrong person?

What if I’ve no place left to call home?

What if I can’t navigate my way out of

this darkness, and it’s an answering machine

which picks up your phone?

How am I supposed to stop crying?

When does it get easier to breathe?

How can I pretend to crave tomorrow

when my preferred version of normal

is so, so far beyond saving?

  

I stare at the door, and hear a tempest

I listen to my heart, and see you, full of life

Thus, within the agreeable ache

is where I can be found for now;

comforting myself

through the breath-robbing reality

that you can no longer find me