“how did your mom die?”

she would love as if it were as common as breathing- so far and so deep, too far and too deeply-

the leaves falling with winters falling snow stole her with the last gusts of novembers brisk winds

she was singing so loudly in a world that did not even deserve to hear the slightest humming

–

she died of a smile, of a smirk

of far too often, far too profoundly

of yet again, a world which deserved nothing;

she as the woman will give, gave everything,

she died of dancing to the wrong music.

–

she died of the spaces between awake and asleep catching up to her,

of all of the good and bad moments,

of peace and labor,

not of any other soul, not of her own

but of the soul of a planet which will now turn as she gazes upon it,

though it is entirely unworthy of her gaze.

–

there are still words to be said and

last breaths unknown.

there are moments and days that will overtime force to fade into the closed shut box that is dusty and is only labeled

“good memories”

but i will fight it, i will fight it so hard.

–

the woman who gave life to me cannot rest for eternity without her name being spoken,

and she will not rest ever without her words being said yet again,

her smile being brought up in conversation

her entirety of self pushing its way from the back of all minds, my mind, into the front.

she will ask if i have eaten enough for dinner and i will say

yes mom, of course, thank you-

and the smallest moments will matter the most;

the smallest moments will matter the most.

all of the things you left behind

a half finished tube of toothpaste, baked chicken in the oven, the ice cream i bought you in the freezer

the boots you loved, the mail, the laundry in the washer,

the tv remote on the couch, your favorite jacket on the couch, the dog and cat on the couch,

the keys to the house, the keys to the car, all of the birthday cards

the half full trash, full recycling

your favorite songs on the radio, the dishes in the dishwasher,

me

me

me

when you died

the world did not pause, it did not skip a beat:

time is a continuum and does not fail when our hearts do

and so you left behind these pieces of you that are not picked up

you left the tv on and your finger prints are still on the kitchen sink.

where you are

i dont know where you are-

if it is as though you are on the other side of the median driving the other way- if it is as though you are only two steps behind my every move- if it is as though you are on the other side of the mirror that i look into when i wake up-

i dont know where you are.

–

i hope the coffee is warm, and i hope there is extra cream and sugar so that you have it just as you loved it on sunday mornings;

i hope that it is always autumn- that it is always the early evening- that there is nothing to be done other than to watch the sky

i hope that where you are, you can see me, though it is selfish and though you told me to not be selfish; i hope that where you are you can remember the moments of our lives together though our love was just twenty years long.

–

mom, i hope that the sun is always shining but that it is never too hot; that there are days too when you always are able to wear your favorite coat

that you can cook dinner for everyone that you are seeing yet again with new eyes; that you do not have to clean up the dishes.

–

i hope that wherever you are, you know that your favorite rings will always, always rest around my neck: on the day of my graduation, on my eventual wedding day, when i have my first child; and at the moment that i take my last breath. i hope that wherever you are, you too have your favorite rings and you too can hold them when you are anxious, if you ever, ever are.

–

i hope that i have a daughter so that she can wear your name; i hope that i have a son so that he can hear all of the stories from my father about falling in love with you; i hope that when i have a child, i am even half the mother that you were to me.

–

i don’t know where you are but i hope that there are days when you can relax by the river with your toes in the mud, because you never minded imperfection, in fact you loved it. you loved moments that other people would have despised; you loved the cold frigid days, the scolding hot days, the taste of cigarettes;

i hope they have your favorite brand in heaven, if that is where you are.

 

different ways to say how i feel about you

1. i want to kiss you every single time we stop at a red light so please, lets drive through new york city
2. i bought you your stupid cigarettes even though they smell like ass
3. i borrowed your socks today and i hope thats okay and i hope that we are at a point in our relationship where i can do that without it being too weird
4. i will always listen to the music you want to listen to
5. sometimes i think about you at inconvenient times and i catch myself smiling and i really hope that nobody sees me
6. before i met you i didn’t like black coffee but i pretended to for long enough to fit in with you and now i do
7. sometimes i daydream about our future and i know im not really able to see into the future but it looks pretty good from over here
8. i’ve always wanted to change the world or something but this relationship is probably equally as satisfying
9. i like to listen to you talk about politics at least 80 percent of the time
10. if you were cold, i probably would not give you my coat because you’d look goofy in it, but i’d do it if you wanted me to
11. you are just as cute in your pajamas as you are in your suit
12. i don’t really like sleeping next to people but you don’t snore too loud so its okay

beautiful

my mom was beautiful in a conventional sense-

so often seen with chestnut brown curls gracing her shoulders,

and a smile that she did not love as much as the world did;

she was beautiful in a conventional sense,

which is to say that she turned heads when she walked,

and when she walked, she walked with purpose

as if someone were calling her name.

–

she was beautiful in a sense that she did not truly understand

how beautiful she was, but it is almost painful to realize that

everyone else saw what she could not see.

it was as though she were looking in a mirror that did not reflect back to her

and instead reflected what she saw herself as-

always craving change, always craving to move forward and to

become herself, although

likely she never knew what that meant.

–

she was beautiful in the sense that

when a tear may roll down her cheek,

it would break the hearts of those who saw her ache.

beautiful in the sense that it was always every single person

before her,

yes she did turn heads as she walked but she stole hearts too.

–

my mother is gone, but her beauty is not;

i see her dancing in the mornings as i shut my eyes before i wake up,

i see her when i look in the mirror

because i am only alive because she carried me through the world.

her beauty resides in the places she walked, and within those she loved

and within those who loved her.

–

her beauty begins to emanate when you least expect it,

remembering how she loved the taste of coffee on sunday mornings,

or when her favorite songs seem as though they are on repeat in my mind-

when i tie my shoes, and remember that this is one of the many things she taught me

when i hold those who i love close to me

because i did learn love through her and the way that she loved me.

–

my mother is beautiful, and my mother is gone-

and though we live in a world that created her,

we also live in a world in which nothing beautiful can last forever,

and how wounding and elegant that is.

four hundred thousand

I’ve known you for nine months, which is about four hundred thousand minutes-

but darling minutes with you feel like hours. The quickest route to serenity is through our fingertips touching

the quickest route to serenity is to be with it.

four hundred thousand minutes is enough time for you to know what scares me the most and it is enough time for you to know exactly how to make my coffee and it is enough time for you to buy me the perfect book

but i do not want minutes, hours, months away from you.

before I met you I wasn’t hurting- I didn’t feel a thing at all. I was walking over coals with bare feet as I grazed through each day but you

taught me how to feel again in just four hundred thousand minutes. taught me how to be calm on Sundays

and how to love even when I am feeling the feelings that I do not want

to be feeling.

The quickest route to serenity is to be

with it, to hold it, to latch onto it after the panic.

The quickest route to serenity is to spend four hundred thousand minutes melting away every single moment that I have ached.

The quickest route to serenity is at the tip of my fingers in the morning and at night-

I am eager to fall asleep so I can wake up next to you.

blue

you make me want to read all of the books that have ever graced my hands so that maybe someday

I’ll be able to configure the words that I need to be able to describe how it feels when you 

grace my hands. there are things that were

before you that did not mean anything but now they mean something and 

my god I am so happy that they mean something like

night time on the porch or keeping a lighter around in case you lose yours.

–

The first time I met you, you turned bright blue and so I knew I would

end up with you, eventually: it’s why I persisted with my hands around

your strong shoulders-

only the most divine people are blue. You love me like blue, calm and passionatley

and when the first color I see in the morning is you- 

the gray doesn’t sulk into my bones, just quite yet.

blue is not sad when blue is the color of you, and you

are the color that paints over the blemishes of the sickened world that I live in.

baby, it’s all blue with you

and I don’t know how to say that, so I’ll read these books until my eyes ache

maybe someday I’ll know.

shit, dude.

it was a year ago,

well- a year ago in about two days

that i broke your heart by ending it all at your parents house. i do not know if i will ever speak to you again, but if all there is, all there ever can be is these words

then so be it.

who we physically are as human beings is finite but our words are not, so please listen as i apologize and let it be known forever- mark it in stone, i threw it all away. you never fucked up, i was the one

who couldn’t just be normal.

my youngest self was force fed the idea by picture books and stories told in front of my juvenile green eyes that

magic was not a thing of another world, that it could be- was, as near as just up the stairs.

if you believe anything for long enough you might as well be right, right?

i thought we were in love, but god- i was never able to tell the difference between being in love and needing to be needed.

and to me, love and magic were always fucking synonymous- as if that could ever be true.

i don’t know how to apologize for not ever loving you other than to say, i am sorry for not being able to fall in love with you

i am sorry for stuffing my throat with my own secrets that stretched back for years on end

i am sorry for the messy apartment and how i will not let you touch me hardly ever

i am sorry for crying more often than i didn’t cry, except that im not really sorry for that because we shouldn’t ever apologize for who we are,

says every therapist i’ve seen since i left.

i wonder if you ever go back to the compartment in between your ears where you and i are still together, and if you do

which parts you think about. my favorite are the fights about whether or not i am allowed to have ice cream for breakfast and the piles of clothes in the closet because i only wore boys clothes and you only wore my clothes

you see, i never really loved you in the sense that i wanted to kiss more than your cheek

but i loved you so deeply as a person- and im sorry because that’s pretty fucked up.

i hope youre up to the things that you really want to be up to these days like

gardening or holding someone beautiful because

shit dude, you deserve it.

i dont think this will ever reach you, but

shit dude, you deserve the world, and it deserves you too.

 

luck in the cold

I didn’t believe in god before I met you, and I’m not sure if I do now 

but it doesn’t seem like just luck that you know exactly how to hold my shoulders on bad days-

or what I really mean when I’m talking;

Luck is a good parking space and a sunny day, luck is winning a coin toss- heads up,

luck does not give you everything you’ve ever needed on a cold January afternoon.

I have undeniably always ached to be the girl of all of your in between moments-

of all of the times when there is nothing to do and nowhere to be but at least we can be together.

On a cold January afternoon, something- somewhere lead me to you. There is no sweeter place, no kinder place to be. 

It was a cold January afternoon, but my darling

it was so warm. 

the gardener’s hands

mama used to want help weeding the garden and 

mama and i used to always walk around with dirt under our finger nails- used to.

she and i went to a bar for the first time together when i was six 

and i sat in the corner and then after the bartender cut mama off after she tore a poster off the wall,

she drove me home and she looked beautiful in the dim headlights of other cars headed towards us.

mama used to want help weeding the garden. weeding the garden, 

she says, she will always say, is best done with a drink in the other hand

mama used to be so beautiful with the most beautiful hands and I think they were divine even with dirty nails

yet for years her hands were so wrapped around a bottle that she couldn’t be anything more than trapped

mama is addicted 

but she calls it self medicating and 

the other day I saw a car that looked like the one that she was driving us around in when she 

told me about her plan to divorce my dad so

i followed the car for a bit but then i realized that it was not her

she had crashed that car while she was 0.15 at 10 am last spring 

and i don’t know what i would have said had it even been her.

i don’t have a mama anymore but there is a lady living not too far away, maybe twenty or so minutes. 

she is who used to be mama. 

we change as beings: it is almost as if we die and come back to life as someone who is a better or worse version of who we have always been and so

if a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, it probably makes a noise, but that noise doesn’t matter to anybody.

but if someone gives you a life and breaks you to pieces while there’s nobody there to see it

well, at least there is evidence that the tree fell.