Grief Written

 The tarot card readers say “It’s an eclipse, it’s the time to let things go.” So for the first time In all my sentimental history I attempt to burn the letters But as I drive up the canyon I cannot find a place to burn them  And return home After so long Leaving the letters in the front seat I won’t bring them across the threshold  It means nothing I assure myself, nothing at all

 Does it feel alright to not know me? Can you feel the time stretch between us, The pop of each stitch  As we pull apart the fabric of our souls I once carefully stitched, mended and repaired. Sometimes I reach for the comfort of us, Only to find The back of my empty closet.  If you manage to find it, Perhaps underneath your bed or thrown in the back of your car — please let me know: would it ever fit someone the same again? Or will it always fit just a little wrong? Overgrown and otherwise 

 And I resist the urge  Even as I lay on the bathroom floor I don’t reach for the idea of comfort  To say “something has happened and I need you.” Because it’s relief is temporary  In the way you have been  And what is need anyway?

 There’s a line by Shakespeare that I think about often, “Hell is empty. All the devils are here.” It’s from the Tempest. God has been evicted from the corners of my mind, His rent was long overdue —10 percent paid with no return  Called upon over over over again, Only to collect on my pleas but abandon me in my need. I knew he was gone long before I was 17-years-old in the backseat of a car. Maybe religion is a pyramid scheme. Even as he’s abandoned me, I still dial his number often — perhaps testing his inbox’s capacity. If the number still goes through, or if it’s just a dial tone. This is something I’d never admit to anyone who’d bother to ask. Holding up one of the devils with one arm and helping him smoke a cigarette with the other, Another told me “The only thing stopping you from crossing over into atheism is fear.” Fear has been bedfellow since my stepfather had moved into our home decades ago, But I do not tell him that — this is a party after all.  The cigarette has neared t

 It all was just a figment of my imagination  A translation of my childhood Cloaked by my best intentions 

 I wish  I could un-whisper all my childhood secrets  Entrusted to him in bed sheets that weren’t ours  Just his And I wish  I could rewind To the point where we didn’t know each other at all

 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.