don't go.
Woke up tasting tangy bile
and smiled.
Tried
to find a scrap of you
in notebook pages.
Scratch of the pen, a chant.
Last chance
to summon the aroma
of smoke drenched clothes.
Hay bales, sun burnt grass,
oil for the rusted Allis Chalmers.
All became perfume
of a past that keeps reappearing.
I dont know where you went.
Recliner is empty.
House demolished.
Gravel road no longer on the map.
Everytime I pass the state line
I think maybe you'll come back.
Leaving was was your trademark.
Or was it standing still?
You taught me well.
I memorized the silence.
Craved holding my tongue.
I'm afraid
of everyone.
My hands are ice
from keeping hold
of the dead.
Mouth sandpaper
from praying to let go.
Letting go is hard when issues are unresolved. You know I like to remember them as they were, broken toys, not who I hoped or imagined they were. Life is like a ball of tape in your pocket. At first, it picks up lint, but the longer it stays in the pocket, it picks up everything you put in there, a coin, a paper clip, until it’s entangled with your keys, too heavy to bear the weight, so it frays but it never stops sticking. By the end, you’ve gathered everything, even the things you don’t want to gather.
“My hands are ice from keeping hold of the dead” is a line that stays long after the poem ends. Thank you for sharing this.