In The End

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

My family is a compilation of unhealed truths and disintegrating hearts

Infection is setting in but we are all too proud to ask for help

We do not know how to say:

I cannot fix this one,

this time

it is not simply my refusal to

This time

I could not stitch this back together

Even if I tried

But we are more than willing to gripe about the pain

To say that we are dying without the weight of the fact that the end is coming for us

Will rotting away in the back of the fridge with the oranges I told my mother not to buy

She says it is her money

Tells me to stop worrying about the price of things

When all she has ever taught me is how much life costs at someone else's expense

.

My father says he's sorry

It is the one thing my mother

Never did

He says he's sorry and that he is trying

To change

He says he is getting better

I say

Okay

I try to

Believe him

I try to

Forgive

But I have never been taught how

Never been taught the phonetic difference between

Mercy and forgetting so they become

Synonyms

And remembering a sin

Only committed in the shower

When the water is louder than the sacrilege

And how can I hold him

When I am still mourning the loss of the

Parts of me he shattered

Because he was angry

But even I know

How much easier it is

To hate

Than to

Grieve

.

I remind myself

I have broken things too

I remind myself

I am only

What I have let myself become

I remind myself

I have no one

To blame

But myself

So I blame her

Bathe in doubt

And swallow the bathwater

~ my mother will never be sorry

I grow old and wonder if writing poetry has always been this hard

I wonder what I wouldn't sacrifice for a muse

I would give my youth if I had any left to offer

The only thing I have ever wanted more than to be a writer

Is to be loved

But these days I wonder

If there is really a difference

For where do I exist if not between the lines of every poem I have never written

And if I do not write my story who will

And if I do not claw my metaphors into your tear ducts

Who will remember me

Who will remember me

- Hiatus

And even now

When I think of you 

In mourning of us

It is her ghost

That haunts you 

While I wait my turn

To be remembered

For it has always been her

And the girl who wears her sheets of grief

This time

Until they grow tired of playing a dead thing

For you

And even after everything 

It is her ghost that you take to bed

And mine that lingers by the door

Watching

Wondering

Wanting

Forever

For I cannot even 

Haunt you

Better than

She

- 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.