Grief Written

 I am flipping pennies in my hotel room, Waiting on some sign or signal. I’m crying and can’t catch my breath — I did not anticipate this to be so painful. My childhood wounds are gnawing from the inside and I’m trying to settle myself. I’ve began collecting pennies both heads and tails from sidewalks, So when it lands I do not know what it means. I long for his voice on the phone, To bury my face deep in his chest. I remember sitting in his lap as he cried after he spoke on the phone with his father, The way I kissed his shoulder and hands while it was on speaker phone. Afterwards he told me, “you feel like home, you feel so safe to me.” But what does one say when home has been a word dissected and reconfigured over the years? I know there’s a lot I can say about someone reminiscent of my childhood, But I cannot stop crying after seeing her. I cannot stop. It is hard to create metaphors or motifs or even just meaning, I think I may drown.

We’re standing inside the airport near the check-in line and my father is retrieving something we forgot in the car, My grandparents are sitting while we wait and I’m distracted by a bird flitting between sky lights. I watch it with worry, without meaning, constructing a metaphor of sorts or a personification. I can hear it chirping and I wonder aloud whether there is a position of some kind within the airport to guide it back into the sky. My grandparents do not notice my question, I do not fault them with this because I can speak softly and as a middle child I have grown accustomed to dialogue with myself. Later, When we’ve settled for breakfast before the flight I notice a second bird and I wonder to myself how many are required for a motif. I cannot ascertain what species it may be so the further meaning alludes me. When my grandmother noticed this bird I express my worry once more, “It must be able to find its way out,” she reassures.  “I don’t think so, it must be so confused wit

 In this version, The man I love brushes his teeth over the sink with me and we take turns spitting, laughing each time our eyes meet in the mirror. I am not worried about the longevity of my toothbrush on his bathroom counter, It’ll be replaced every six months after each dentist appointment —I do not cancel it because we are not arguing in the driveway. While I peel it out of the packaging I make him guess the color while simultaneously asking, “how often are we supposed to replace these actually?” He is not annoyed with my game and puts thought into the answer, listing off all the previous colors that have spotlighted on his bathroom counter. And before I can pause peeling the toothbrush out of the package, he has reached for his phone to google my question.  In this version, I  am not surprised that he has anticipated a need from me.  There are sticky notes stuck to the mirror with my handwriting from several days before, he does not take them down until they lose their stickiness

 I find myself reaching  For hands  For hope For the words I’ve been meaning to convey  And all I find is widespread nothingness.

The tumbling of the dryer shakes the entire apartment The slap slap slap of my wet clothes hitting the metal drum  Mixed with the rattling of the apartment windows I can feel the vibrations move through the soles of my feet and it shakes any semblance of a thought forming  and I remind myself that the building is old. That the bones of the building are not used to such modern adjustments and that here the sun finds its way inside, And that the cat loves her perch beside the windowsill and beneath the air conditioning unit.  Sometimes I pace between the spaces, passing from the living room through the kitchen into the bedroom and then bathroom. Back, again. You said you need space — to move, to be. For you, the breadth of it was not enough. I remember sitting in the corner with my friend as she cried over a boy. The apartment was mostly empty besides some boxes. We drank wine from paper cups left over from my birthday the year before and I remember thinking, “I could fill this place wit

 Somewhere in a photography store are photos of the Oregon Coast The film had been bought years prior, cradled by coins collected and placed in a catch all jar  I remember watching a YouTube video three times, rewinding again again again  As I carefully enrolled the film between cupped hands to shield it from what little sunlight broke through  I could feel him watching me from the corner of his eye as he spoke on the phone but pushed his purview to side as the dial clicked. We walked to the beach barefoot and the rocks were sharp under my feet, the callouses of my childhood turned to softness I remember running through rivers and climbing trees as a girl The way my mother would watch me only slightly, assured in the toughness of my skin  And my ability to tread lightly on seashells, eggshells, cliff-sides and girlhood I brought her up that drive when hours had bleed through into the roadway and he told me, “Pass. I only want to talk about happy things.”  Click. We’re walking on the pa

 I was sitting next to his door with my face in my hands when I confessed, “I keep forgetting to breathe. I keep holding my breath and I have to remind myself to inhale and exhale.” I think about that often, there’s a lot of secondary thoughts to that one. But really what I mean to say is that the act of breathing is supposed to be reflexive, In the way writing is to a poet. But each night as I remind myself to breathe I try to construct lines of poetry in my mind. And I find myself restless. There’s too many eyes, real or perceived. And the red notebook by my bed still has engravings of letters long given away. etched into the page. In between practiced breaths and stilled fingertips I imagine those letters combusting, bursting into flames until nothing is left but ash. But Ash. A return of pieces I had given away.  And even in my imagination there’s still a spark left inside of me. I want to write something beautiful. Something so aching and familiar that I can recognize the fingerpr