How Does A Poet Ever Write About

How does a poet ever write about

The things that matter

I want to write about

My mother’s notebook

And my sister the dying star

I want to write about the grieving blackhole

And the beauty of supernova unbecoming

I want to write about

The library that swallowed the sun

And burned

And burned

And burned

I want to write about how every book

Has smelt slightly of smoke to me since then

I want to write about forgiveness

I want to write about my unravelling

The things I will never get back

I want to write about the teardrops of time

Filtering through my lashes

I want to write about the end

I want to write about the end

The end

But it is all so

Hopeless

So infinite

I try to write of it

And I sit with the galaxy in the pit of me

And I ache

The words die on my fingertips

The metaphors swell until my throat is

A rose stem

And I lay on the living room floor

Remembering how to breathe

Promise myself

I do not have to write the poem

Promise myself

I never have to write again

And the galaxy consumes itself

And there are no poems

There are no poems

About the things

That matter

~ don't call me a poet

- the phases of the moon speak with the stages of grief -

1.

The Loss: {silence}

The New Moon: {silence}

The Loss: Is this the end?

The New Moon: I suppose it depends on where you start. For some, this is the beginning. For others, this is the end.

The Loss: {silence}

The New Moon: {silence}

The Loss: It is so dark.

The New Moon: I know.

The Loss: {silence}

The New Moon: The ache will come in waves. The tides are always highest when the loss is new or full.

The New Moon: {silence}

The Loss: {silence}

2.

Shock & Denial: This is not the end.

Waxing Crescent: No, I suppose this is just the beginning.

Shock & Denial: The darkness cannot last.

Waxing Crescent: The darkness is eternal. It is the light that must fade eventually.

Shock & Denial: This is not the end.

Waxing Crescent: No, I suppose a cycle cannot end, but nor can it begin. For some things are forever.

3.

Pain & Guilt: It hurts

First Quarter: It will not last.

Pain & Guilt: Perhaps it should. Perhaps this is what I deserve.

First Quarter: Why?

Pain & Guilt: I could have...

First Quarter: You could not have. There are some things you cannot change. There are some things that are meant to happen. They cannot be stopped. I would know.

Pain & Guilt: It hurts.

First Quarter: For now. For this is just a phase

4.

Anger & Bargaining: If I promise to change, do you think life will return?

Waxing Gibbous: Do you think you can change?

Anger & Bargaining: Perhaps if life came back.

Waxing Gibbous: You can not barter with life or with the light. You will change when you are meant to. When you are ready. And they will come and go when they are meant to. When they are ready.

Anger & Bargaining: And who are they to get to say? Who are you?

Waxing Gibbous: I am but a phase. I am but the part of the moon the light is meant to hold tonight.

Anger & Bargaining: I would have given my light for theirs.

Waxing Gibbous: Light is light. It belongs to no one. It is not yours. It was not theirs. And who are you to command the light?

Anger & Bargaining: {silence}

Waxing Gibbous: {silence}

Anger & Bargaining: I am but a phase. I am temporary. The light will leave me too.

Waxing Gibbous:  But it has not yet.

5.

Depression: Is this the end?

Full Moon: I suppose it depends on where you start. For some, this is the beginning. For others, this is the end.

Depression: I think I would like for this to be the end.

Full Moon: But look how far you’ve come.

Depression: I think I would rather return to before the beginning.

Full Moon: But look, you are already almost there.

Depression: I don’t know if I will make it. I feel so empty.

Full Moon: But look at how full you are of sorrow.

Depression: {silence}

Full Moon: The ache will come in waves. The tides are always highest when the loss is new or full.

6.

The Upward Turn: I feel lighter. I do not understand why. For there is more darkness here than there was before.

Waning Gibbous: The darkness does not always have to be heavy. Sometimes the darkness is a mercy. Sometimes it is a chance to start again.

The Upward Turn: I don’t know if I am ready to start again without them. Not yet.

Waning Gibbous: Not yet. Not before you are ready. You must trust the light will turn when it is time

The Upward Turn: It still hurts.

Waning Gibbous: It will. for this love is not a phase, but this sorrow is.

7.

Reconstruction & Working Through: This is not the end.

Third Quarter: No, this is not.

Reconstruction & Working Through: There is more to life than the way it ends.

Third Quarter: Yes, there is.

Reconstruction & Working Through: There are ways to remember others without forgetting yourself. Life lies beyond this. I feel it.

Third Quarter: You must strive to find revival in the darkness. You must trust the light will come for you even when you cannot see it.

Reconstruction & Working Through: Even in the aftermath of loss. I will strive to rebuild a life in which their memory will last. A life worthy of the light to return to.

Third Quarter: It is not about being worthy. It never was. It is about spending your time well while you have it. It is about not wasting away worrying about the next phase but just existing in this one. And trusting the light will hold you and have you and leave you exactly when it is meant to. Do you trust?

Reconstruction & Working Through: I am trying to.

Third Quarter: Then that is enough.

8.

Acceptance & Hope: Is this the end?

Waning Crescent: People tell me that I am the end, and yet in all my years I have not felt like the end. I have not yet met it but I do not think it looks like this.

Acceptance & Hope: No, I do not think it looks like this either. But what comes after this?

Waning Crescent: I have heard rebirth comes after this. That it lays in the darkness. In the unknown.

Acceptance & Hope: And I will be rebirthed into a new life in which they are gone. Do you not fear the day when the light does not return for you?

Waning Crescent: Not anymore. For today is not that day. Perhaps, tomorrow, when the light leaves, she will not return. But today, she is not done with me yet.

Acceptance & Hope: No, not yet.

Waning Crescent: Not yet.

I only ever wrote for you after our end

Which meant every poem tasted too much like an overripe obituary on the tongue

But when has guilt ever stopped me from doing something I shouldn't

What has poetry ever done but turn me selfish

Let me repaint everything in shades that complement the tale of my own tragedy

For what is the heartbreak of an artist

If not another poem the world could have done without

In the end

When redemption comes for me

He looks so much

Like you

And is not what absolution has always been?

You

Coming back

To me

And in the space carved out for forgiveness 

He plants "I love you, still" instead

And is this not what mercy has always been?

Love where guilt once grew

Burying the hurt in an unmarked grave

A field of second chances blooming over it

The doctor tells me I might have arthritis at 9 am on a wednesday in november 

My shoes are wet, my coat is soaked, my umbrella is broken 

I have to catch a bus in time for class 

In 20 minutes, 19 minutes, 18 minutes

18 minutes

18 minutes

18

The cold is seeping into my aching bones 

The doctor tells me I might have arthritis

But he does not believe the MRI results

He says I am only 18

18

He says it should be impossible

For my body to be is such a state of

Inevitable disrepair 

And this is all I have ever wanted

For someone to tell me that I am too young to be this old 

That all this ache belongs somewhere 

That I am allowed to hurt

And that they are going to heal me

The doctor tells me I might have arthritis

And there is nothing we can do 

Which is of course not exactly what he says 

He says here are our options

And i hear 

There is nothing we can do 

I hear

This body 

A broken record 

Only getting worse 

The song you once loved eventually

Unrecognizable 

It's surface covered in scar tissue that runs

Too deep

To love back to healing

But you remember 

You remember 

What it sounded like

When it was capable of beauty

These days, I look at my body and wonder how I could have ever been at war with something so soft

03.08.22