Poetry

I stood as still as water in the doorway,

As the room grew smaller.

Your ghost greeted me in your Home Depot Office chair.

As it was being squashed by someone wearing all black. 

I can't breathe, 

I haven't felt like this in a while. 

I thought it was getting better, 

But I'm still drowning in screams. 

Breathe, 

Take some air, you deserve it. 

I want love to feel 

like driving into the sunset in a 90's movie

in an old red convertible

classic rock playing us out.

In 2050,

In Vermont:

I hope there will be

the same amount

of forest,

but there may

be less

as there is now

from 1990.

I hope my children

will know

They say I hate you,
But I never really did.
All I do is suffocate my sadness into nothing at all - like you taught me;
Because I don't know what else to do.
I see grief everywhere around me;
In 7 pm,
In cans of Appalachia,

You tell me I’m not enough

I’m unproductive

I’m insignificant

I’m useless

So I tried a little harder

I studied more

I’m just the nice girl 

The therapist friend 

Who’s seen enough  

To bring her to her end 

I give them advice 

“What are you going to miss most?”
“You.”

          Oh lover,

                Oh lover,

Sometimes

I look at the stars

And hope

That somewhere

In another universe

We all got our happy endings.

In solitude I reside

Till the ghost of you will perish

I’ve erected a river of tears I cried

For it is you that I will cherish

The beauty of her boundaries,

Were how easy they’d be found,

She very clearly stated,

how not to let her down,

So if you crossed the first one,

She’d state to you again,

Please don’t go there my darling,

I wish a lie was just another funny truth,

But it’s not,

The chains that tied it to the floor,

Left nothing but cankered knots,

And when the sailors hauled her up the side of the dock,