when I was kicking cancer,
so now I am in the market
for a new one.
Maybe Pernille.
Maybe Lauren.
Maybe Jeff Buckley's Grace album.
I’ve been a basement
of myself.
a low tide with no full moon to blame.
The grass outside is gold like an apology
the sky is wide enough to forget your name
and still—I look for my own shadow
and can’t find where I’m standing.
There are people in ironed shirts
telling me what my hands can’t touch
telling me how not to love you anymore.
I still sing.
you still dance, even in absence—
you always were louder than distance.
I tell the night:
new blues.
like a first heartbreak in borrowed denim.
battle cry.
like the sound you made leaving
quiet, but
in all caps.
I don’t sleep.
not since you folded your smile
and put it in someone else’s drawer.
But this ache,
this beat-up beautiful ache
is the only thing
that hasn’t lied to me yet.
I don’t want to be low again.
I want to climb out of this
without scraping your name off the walls.
No one tells me who I am
or who I can’t mourn.
not even you.
Not anymore.