Please Don't Ask Me If I'm Okay

note: partially inspired by Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese" 

        and  for my mom 

i want you to sit and stare at the glistening horizon. 

i am learning to live without the idea of you

and i am trying to fill up the empty cave 

in my head, the one you created when you 

fell to the ground and pulled me down with you. 

she talks to me about the paper snowflakes she plans to make this weekend, and so i refrain from telling her that my bedroom has been decorated since the day after thanksgiving.