Mourning

At first we think we’ll make it,
those beginning steps so promising
before we sink without warning.

The headstones are too far away,
every one a panic-inducing reminder
of our own fragile mortality.
Do we care enough to keep going?
Yes. We have to.

But sometimes you can’t control yourself.
The pain and fear and helplessness
swallow you,
exterminating everything
in the wake of your loss.
‘What if’ changes nothing, and yet—

We’re standing at the graves.
Meant to bring solace to the living,
they never really do.
They allow us to more easily hold on
rather than let go.
To pretend that worlds don’t end
in a matter of minutes.

Grief and rage well up inside me,
some pity but more than that, hate.
Fuck fuck fuck, my insides scream.
But nothing helps.

We carry the things that matter,
but we can never carry this.

They say love triumphs over death.
I say bullshit. Love is death.

Sunlight heats the right side of my face,
but although we leave,
the chill never seems to.
No matter how many times the world ends,
the sun still comes up.

And yet—

Next Window Please

unused postage stamps
and empty envelopes
the only signs of his past presence
people quickly forget
it was the cancer that took him
Next Window Please
says the sign on the table

Fathers and Daughters

Pink sweater,

dirty blonde hair

falling out of a headband

she probably put on herself.

Around six or seven years old,
holding her father's hand

with the kind of smile that will

break someone's heart someday.

I wonder what will happen

before someday.

As she bounces away, 

I imagine a girl

fifteen years older.

The same dirty blonde hair,

longer now,

pulled back. 

A girl who can't sleep in the same room

as another person. 

I wonder what will make her this way.

No Angels In London

They called her fallen,
and she can't fight what they say;
she will never get back up.

Children cry in the streets, not knowing exactly why,
not knowing that it could be so much better
than they've ever known.
The angels can't do anything to help.
Their wings are torn, their hands scarred
from dealing with the pain so no one else has to.
They hide their bruised arms and red eyes
with long sleeves and makeup.
They keep it together so no one else has to.
Because anything short of perfection is the same as damnation,
and anything less than what's expected isn't tolerated.
And so they struggle to maintain the imperfect, impossible ideal.

Identity is lost in a uniform congregation,
and it's difficult to separate the corruption from the institution.
The hollow reflection in the mirror becomes a shadow
as personal histories become suicide notes.
No one escapes unscathed.

While desire is a sin for women,
it's expected of men.

Our purpose is to purify those men
who can't control their own thoughts.
Their privilege is to tell us how to live,
but they can only do so because we let them.

Forgotten suit jackets hang over chairs
and the men turn the heat down
although the women are still cold in the skirts
they've been told to wear as a sign of devotion.

Wealthy old men grow richer on the pockets
of devotees who can't escape their circumstances. 
Senile old women babble on about a time no one remembers,
not even those who lived it alongside her.
Proud young men lose their self-control to obsession,
believing that everything will be just fine.
Battered young women never learn to expect
anything better from themselves or their lives.

Caged birds may sing of freedom,
but women sing because they are told to.
If they stop they lose the only acceptance they have ever known.
To be free is to be irredeemable.

God forbid a woman think for herself.

All they had to do was leave London,
but they can't.
London is everywhere, and
there are no angels to be found.

Untitled

It's almost funny,

how you think it will never end,

and suddenly it's four years later. 

It's almost funny,

how much it still hurts,

even after all this time. 

Entitled

He fears the changes he's seen in me,
and maybe the ones he hasn't yet.
I fear his anger over my decisions,
the ones he doesn't agree with.

People fear what they don't understand,
and we both fear what the other could do to us.

I finally understand what he meant
all those years ago,

and I'm afraid it might cost

more than I'm willing to pay. 

Satin

It was a week before the holiday.
When I left, I lit a candle.

We drank wine and whiskey.
I could see his heartbeat,
feel her voice,
taste our liquor.
We said that we are
a beautiful existence.

A woman waits on the wall
reaching out for something,
the lines of her fingers stark
against the black fog that surrounds her.

We tasted like wine and whiskey.
Beneath soft blankets
we shared a pillow,
pressed close enough that
three days later his cologne
still lingered on my shirt.

I held my heart in my collarbone,
my body thudding with every beat.
All I heard was silence,
the fire gone out of my fingers
although his still burned.

We put a lot of power in firsts.
This one didn’t have to mean anything,
but that doesn’t mean it meant nothing.
The way his shirt stretched
across his shoulders,
over my skin,
his hands in my hair.

When I leave, the woman on the wall
beckons me to stay.
I go.
Maybe I’ll find what she’s looking for.

When I returned home,
the candle still flickered.

I wanted to tell him I'm not sorry,
but those words could ignite.
So I walked out,
listened to him lock the door behind me.

My flame burned out with the candle—
whether or not I did the smothering,
it was always going to suffocate.
I should have known better
than to let it burn so long.

Maybe the woman on the wall
was never looking for anything.
Maybe she isn’t reaching,
but letting go.