Loving you is too much for me
But I’m not ready to let you go
There’s a hush in the hours we share
A quiet between words we no longer hold.
Your name tastes like the first warmth of spring
Like something I could bask in forever
But forever is a heavy thing to carry
And my fragile arms can handle no more.
It’s not your fault, and it’s not mine
Some hearts are made to stay
Others to bloom, then drift on by.
I will think of you when the world hushes
When the sky folds into dusk
And I’ll be greatful we crossed lifetimes
Even if we couldn’t stay inside.
If you find yourself remembering me
Let it be soft like the last line of a lullaby
Fading into sleep
Not angry, not bitter— just a little sad
The way beautiful things sometimes are
When they’re finally gone.
My wife’s lips as I kiss her
hello in the morning.
The air conditioning in the break room,
so stark next to the muggy warmth of the factory.
That bottle of water, greedy gulps
that felt like rain on my garden.
The fight I had with my son
that resulted in progress
finding a job.
The medication I’ve been missing
because the pharmacy couldn’t find it
finally came in, fit like a
puzzle piece into my mind’s inner workings.
The thought of a therapist appointment
later in the week.
My wife’s lips as I kiss her
good night.
There’s a girl in my skin
that I don’t recognize—
she hides in reflections,
behind my own eyes.
She once wore light-up shoes,
sang into a hairbrush mic,
but her name feels foreign
on the tongue of my life.
She sits by the window,
knees hugged in tight,
watching for headlights
that never come at night.
And when Kings of Leon
plays low on the radio,
my chest cracks open
where the old ghosts go.
I remember the way
you cried to the chorus
like it meant something.
You knew every word
like it was your own story—
a little girl aching
for someone to see her glory.
But no one came.
Not then. Not really.
Just a mother with excuses
and a father who hurt freely.
So we stitched together
a version of love
from bruiseless days
and the absence of shove.
We called it affection
when no fists flew,
called it connection
if they said “I love you.”
And when love came wrapped
in apologies and pain,
we stayed—because at least
it came back again.
I’m sorry we learned
that love meant surviving.
That we mistook stillness
for peace, not hiding.
That we gave and we gave
to be “worth the keeping,”
even as we broke
and called it healing.
But listen, little one—
we’re not living like that now.
We are the soft place
our babies lay down.
We are the mother
we never received,
the apology
we always believed.
We’re healing.
It’s messy and wild and slow.
But we are choosing
the love we never got to know.
And when “Use Somebody”
plays late at night,
I still cry sometimes—
but now, it’s alright.
Because I’ve found her,
the child I couldn’t see.
She’s here in my arms.
And she’s safe now—
with me.
is a blessing
to know its switchback roads by heart,
the way they rise and buckle
like ribs beneath the skin of hills,
to follow them down
into mist-soaked hollers
where the air smells of rain.
It holds history
in quilts stitched by hand,
in gravestones half-sunk in clay,
in the way your name echoes back to you
from the ridge.
It is a curse
to carry the ache of a place
that raised Mamaw,
to feel at odds with the same
patch of dirt
where she ran barefoot,
her shins mud-streaked,
her laughter caught in the trees
like clothes on a line.
To love the land
but bristle at the silence
it keeps.
It is necessary
to know it both ways.
To taste the sweetness of blackberries
picked by hand,
and still name the bitterness
growing beside them.
To let it hold us,
this place,
in all its contradictions,
beauty tangled with sorrow.
To remember
we are still becoming,
same as the land.
It is how we survive
ourselves,
each other,
this world.
For each day, a special gift.
What bliss did you miss?
Butterflies dancing
Clouds softly prancing
A teenager’s style
A young toddler’s smile
A rich chocolate treat
Cherished friend that you meet
A favorite flower in bloom
Sunny day’s change to gloom
Tender hug with a friend
Enjoying the garden you tend
Something beautiful you’ll enjoy once again
until your life reaches it’s end
after death
I hate cleaning the house.
Truly despise it.
People–concerned family members typically– will say
“Doesn’t feel better?”
And the answer is “No.”
It feels empty.
It feels like it belongs to someone else.
It isn’t mine.
Although, I’m not embarrassed when someone comes to the door,
I get a gold star from my therapist,
I don’t get evicted from my apartment,
And it doesn’t make my mother cry.
So there’s that.
I have given myself time & driving hear
(in my head)
a former employer: “If you’re not early, you’re late”
(on the speakers)
a 1984 sample from The Art of Noise in The Prodigy’s “Firestarter”:
// hey, hey, hey //
Driving, I am thinking of samples
rich with implications–
echoes extending outward
from their origin
transferring energy
// hey hey hey //
Tapping the steering wheel with my thumbs,
a genetic sample/duplicates of my grandmother’s,
(a child memorizes the hands that cook and bathe and hold)
I retrace how recently travel triggered panic in me
(how someone moving away has always felt like heartbreak)
(how an inciting event can echo for decades)
and how it’s taken a few years to reroute my brain
// hey, hey, hey //
&
I am Driving again!
&
I have given myself time
enough to not accelerate through curves,
though I still hear
(in my head)
Dad: “Remember, you always have your brakes”
(also in my head)
a 1983 sample from Yes in The Art of Noise’s “Close to the Edit”
so
I Sing:
// don’t deceive your free will at all //
as I arrive
neither early nor late
“You are so angry.”
Yes, I am. But,
it is more than the secrets kept
for lifetimes. It is more
than the rejection in your eyes
as I celebrate in June. It is more
than the years of waiting
for the day I can come home
and not jump at every footstep,
every door slamming, every voice
heard over the blarring music
in my headphones. It is all of these,
and it is that sometimes, I can be at peace,
and feel myself leave my body,
just like I did when those lips
were on mine. My hands shake,
and I am nowhere. Yet, I am stuck
in my body and I am watching it happen
again and again and there’s nothing I can say
because I said yes the first time.
And I can’t tell you, because it was a sin
even when I wanted to.
