Grief Written

And any I love yous offered   Have become as empty as his apologies As the doorway   The space in the bed beside me The lines in my notebook  As I search for an inkling  Of his sincerity but find only myself lingering. In my mind I practice slamming doors closed, Instead of throwing open bed sheets Shroud every mirror. Reaching for my anger beneath the floorboards of a home that has a resemblance in both our wavering childhoods, But only finding his. It’s cold in my hands —  Like the tin cans we’ve tied to another, stretching across all this time. I cannot tell if the whispers in the dark a re between the boy who used ride his bike to school afraid it would one day vanish — And the girl who pretended she had a magic wand to make the nightmares disappear. Or if it’s the poltergeists, Drug in with the antiques of our adolescence .

In between all my thoughts  I can feel myself trying to justify even rationalize  all the anger, resentment and pain  you cast onto me. I didn’t deserve it, To pay a price for a debt I didn’t incur. A pound of flesh, Or two or three, The sum of my heart.

I told him one night when we were both drunk in my kitchen, That when I was a little girl and I would have a particularly bad nightmare —  I wouldn’t yell out for my mom or leave my bed to find her. Gathering myself up the best I could I would imagine in my mind a wand, that I would wave around my bedposts. I knew that it wasn’t real but in those moments I believed in my own magic just enough to wrap it around me. When my little brother would have a nightmare and he would come into my room with his pillow and blanket, I would let him sleep on the floor — even though he snored. The night before he was married I thought of this, How not even a year before he had knocked on my door and slept in the twin bed across from mine after a nightmare — despite being well into our 20s.  In the kitchen — when I told him about my magic wand, his brow furrowed and he looked lost for a moment. I thought of how his mother would trail her finger from his hairline, down the bridge of his nose, ov...

 I have sympathy for the devil.  I think anyone who has loved me isn’t surprised by the sentiment.  It’s been said that Lucifer was God’s favorite angel, seated at the right hand of the father. Lucifer means “morning star” or “light bearer.” God created an angel, whom he loved. It is written that God created the world in seven days, On the first — he created light. Then as it follows is the sky, the earth and all its glory, the sun and moon, animals of the air and sea, land animals and human kind and then on the seventh day — God rested.  God created Lucifer, whom he loved, and subsequently created light itself of which Lucifer was to bear. I imagine as God rested, Lucifer eagerly pinpointed the sky with stars so as the sun went down — there was no total darkness.  But then there was the Great War in Heaven And Lucifer was cast down. He didn’t fall —  His father, whose first act of creation bore resemblance to his favorite son, cast him out. God does love t...

We get to the point where he was drunk in the shower,  And I pause. She looks at me, so I begin to study my hands. I haven’t gotten my nails done in awhile, they’re short and I resist the urge to put my thumbnail in my mouth. I can feel her observing me — But I’m thinking of that moment and what he said to me and I wonder if telling her makes his accusations true. I can feel myself drifting away from the couch in my mind when I tell her how I opened the shower door. The bottle of alcohol sat on the edge of the bathroom sink. I undressed and stepped inside, Trying not to remember all times I had softly washed his hair or written messages on the steamed glass. The softness of my body, its vulnerability.  I try to coax him out  but he is angry. “You don’t care about me or love me,” he says. “Okay,” I say. “You don’t, you just want to feel like you’re a good person. You’re such a good fucking person,” he says.  “Okay,” I say. “Let’s just get you into the bed and I’ll lea...

 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