You can’t control the pain.
You can only control your response to it.
It’s okay to not be superhuman.
It’s okay to rest.
You’re doing your best.
This is only a season.
Things will get better.
Everything that needs to get done
will get done.
Rest your mind as well as your body.
We will try again tomorrow.
Things will get better.
I love you.
For Jennifer
Her poem enjoyed a flight
to the far side of the moon
where it will remain through eons,
cradled in technological artistry.
On clear nights, she looks
at the distant orb, envisions
her words precisely penned,
savors a moment of satisfaction,
then turns her eyes towards Mars.
self impose exile
Tears catch attention, reflecting away lightness.
Questions stated that I must respond to:
Would I like some space?
Would I like food or water?
Would I like a hug?
Comfort in the physical sense,
Emotionally abandoned.
I’m still angry, a month later.
When I see you,
my shoulders still draw into clenched balls of muscle,
an anvil plummets into the pit of my stomach,
I’m struck with the kind of helplessness that wracks my legs with trembling.
I imagine plunging a knife into my side,
dropping it on the ground with a smirk,
and finally collapsing into the heap of hurt and humiliation
from this deep ache you forged in me.
Golden boy has golden teeth
It’s alright that it hurts.
Let me say that again-
It’s alright that it hurts this much.
We are not lesser for grieving that which should be grieved,
for it taking as long it takes.
—
I’ve been watching ants
moving their babies into my mailbox before a storm.
Every time it rains they do this
faithfully.
They sense what’s coming
do what they can do
without despair,
together.
—
Would you hold my hand,
let me hold yours?
Perhaps we can carry this together.
Find our way to the other side of the storm.
It’s alright that it hurts.
It’s alright that it hurts this much.
