Wanderings Of The Mind

you’ve never had?

Reach for it,

and realize it was never there?

Can you grieve something

you’ve never lost?

I believe so.

There is a well

of sadness

that lives within me.

A hunger so deep

it tastes like despair.

Tears fall

for something

that could have been.

Something broke me

long ago,

and left behind a

wretched thing.

So now

I wander the earth,

weeping at the tombstones

of my potential.

Searching everywhere

for the girl

I might have been.

I reach for her—

phantom limbs

despite

despite

despite

that she never existed.

-“Phantom Limb”

I think my heart will give out.

Perhaps not in a dramatic

hand to the chest,

final keel-over

kind of way.

But quietly.

I think we will come to an understanding.

I have shared her,

sewn her,

hummed to her

when she beat too hard.

She trusts me

to take care of her

and tells me when

it’s too much.

One day, for her,

perhaps I’ll disappear.

She beats much quieter,

much slower,

in our intimate solitude.

Perhaps there is where I’ll lay her to rest.

I’ll carry her gently

to the arms of death

For all the times

When I asked you

to look inside

I did not think

you would bring a dull knife.

I didn’t think you’d carve.

My skin is coming loose.

My blood is on the floor

You are stepping in it!

You are stepping in it.

Put it back.

I didn’t want you to see this.

My blood is not just red.

It is black too.

So much black.

I cannot gather it.

I cannot return it

to the veins that hid it.

Please put it back.

I only wanted you to see

What lies beneath the skin

But you went too deep

Deep enough to drown

Deep enough to learn

I am not pure.

You eviscerated me

and called it closeness.

I shouldn’t have asked.

Please.

for looking upon the world

with eager, wondering eyes.

You call me silly

for pausing at every flower,

every winged creature

every passing cloud.

But you don’t understand.

I do not look in awe,

I look in desperation.

To cling to what is tender and alive

is the only way I keep from ruin.

The coffee I cradle each morning,

the stillness I guard in a frantic world,

the stars I wait for in the cold night air.

These are not trifles.

They are lifelines.

Only those who have lived in the dark

know the weight of its pull,

how easy it would be to surrender,

to allow bitterness to take root.

But each night,

the stars arrive faithfully.

Each spring,

the flowers bloom again.

The butterflies still dance

as though the world is worth it.

In their quiet teachings,

I remember why I endure.

And so, even broken,

I echo them.

I want to live.

I want to live.

along the slope of my back,

your lips arrive softly

in the hollow of my shoulder.

Your eyes hold a promise of harbor,

your voice the tide that steadies me.

Even the stars ache for

the tenderness in your cradle;

Even the sun has never learned

to warm with such careful mercy.

“Five more minutes,” I whisper,

clutching your phantom skin.

“Do not wake me from being loved.”

(I don’t remember you come morning. But the ache lingers.)

I thought of hurting you back.

To rip the knife from my ribs

And thrust it into you.

To watch you bleed as I bled,

To see your tears drip down

Mirroring my own.

I wanted to carve my name

Into your heart as a wound.

But I can’t.

The knife stays embedded

In my chest.

Your heart is unscarred,

While mine bleeds your name

In a pattern I cannot unlearn.

Despite my lament, this is true:

I only ever knew how to love you.

How could you?

I gave you my name,

my softness,

the keys to every locked room.

But worse than that,

I let you.

I pressed my throat

against your teeth

and called it love.

Isn’t that what love is?

Forging a weapon in your own blood,

placing it gently in another’s hand,

and hoping they will never strike?

You ruined me.

But I ruined myself more

believing trust was a shield,

when it was always

The water in me

Has wandered the sky,

Has fallen as rain,

Has lingered in rivers,

Has hidden in clouds.

The breath in me

Is borrowed from trees,

From flowers that open at dawn,

From leaves that sway in the wind.

The atoms in me

Were born of fire,

Of shattering stars,

Of galaxies long forgotten.

The flesh of me

Will one day return

To soil, to root,

To fox and beetle and bird.

My exhales are a gift

To those who gave.

My skin bears kisses

From a radiant sun.

The shadow of me

Moves with the moonbeams.

It has always been that deep.

An ache I cannot name.

A hunger tucked beneath the ribs,

Gnawing, constant,

Like I was meant for something

I’ll never quite reach.

I press my forehead to the window

And watch the world go by.

Slow, golden, unreachable.

Always on the other side of glass.

It’s much older than yearning.

It demands to be felt.

It grips my chin and forces me

To see everything I’ll never have.

I speak through the keyholes

Thankful that I can at least

See beauty

Even through a locked door.

This ache,

This ache,

The ache

A flame cupped in both hands

Burning me,

Keeping me warm.

Someday I know it will swallow me whole

Its hunger bites

Slow and steady

Taking more of me

Each day.

So for now,

I’ll sit by the window

Knock on the glass

With blood on my knuckles

And whisper

“Let me in,”

And hope that perhaps

The window will crack

Before I do.

So meticulous.

Everything I say.

Everything I do.

It’s all planned.

All rehearsed.

I’m so afraid

Of doing it wrong.

Saying it wrong.

Being wrong.

I never insert myself.

I never assume.

Every mistake

Plays over

Again and again

Until I shrink.

I make myself

As unmemorable

As possible.

I never let

My anger loose.

I tuck my sadness

Into journals.

I never want to be

A burden.

I’m so afraid

Of causing harm

That I cause

Nothing

At all.

And this is how

I’ve existed.

And yet,

As I look back

I realize

I shrunk myself

So small

I became invisible

Never present,

Never seen,

Never heard.

I wanted to be

Careful.

But instead

I was

Forgotten.

-Erased

But my hands were too small.

Her light spilled over my fingers,

dripping onto the forest floor.

The stars told me I needed to grow

before I could touch the sky.

But I saw the way the moon looked at me

with such tender, watching eyes.

I see how she follows me

on all my midnight strolls.

It isn’t silly to fall in love with the moon

we meet up every night, after all.

And one day, I’ll be tall enough

to press a kiss to her cheek

and thank her for every time

she sang me into sleep.

blooming side by side

but with petals too far to touch,

I’d lace poetry into my pollen,

so when the bees and butterflies

flutter through me,

they’d carry my love on their wings

and leave soft kisses on your petals.

If we were stars on opposite corners

Of a vast night sky

I’d shine brighter each night

Winking at you from afar

So you’d never feel alone.

If we were chapters in a story

Separated by pages

I’d write you into every margin

So you’d know I’m thinking of you.

Even if we only met in passing,

I’d find a way to love you.

I’d always be there

As if I am made of glass.

You see every crack,

Every vein,

Every chip on my surface.

I have crafted many masks,

Told countless tales

That hide the

Fragility within.

But I cannot hide from you.

I am afraid.

Afraid of the intimacy

Of being seen.

Of being known.

You see me.

You unravel me.

What if my broken pieces

Do not fit neatly

in your hands?

I want to flee.

I want to stay.

I want you to shatter me completely.

I am terrified

And yet—

I reach for you anyway.

Unmake me, please.

Show me the intimacy

Of being understood.

when you did

the part that knew how to laugh without aching.

But if you’re somewhere now,

running through fields no one else can see,

I hope I’m there too,

even if only in slivers.

I’d gladly leave behind

a piece of myself

so you would never have to be alone.

Even if it means

I carry this emptiness

in your place.

Because grief,

grief is love

with no place to go.

It builds behind my ribs

like floodwater with no riverbed,

a fullness that feels like breaking.

But it is proof.

Proof that you were here.

Proof that I loved

with everything I had.

I still do.

So I will keep you.

I will remember you.

For that is love’s second life—

when it is held,

even in sorrow.

-Your Forever Keeper

It breathes.

It remembers.

She waits behind the silver,

not quite my reflection

older, younger, undone.

Her mouth does not move,

but I hear her all the same:

“What have you made of me?”

Her voice is fog on glass,

shaped by breath, not sound.

She is made of everything I buried.

She wears my hopes like bruises.

She stares with eyes too wide.

I reach for her.

The glass ripples, then cracks.

My fingers bleed on contact.

She does not flinch.

I do not know who shattered first

the mirror or me.

Shards bloom like petals at my feet.

Each one holds a version of us:

laughing, screaming, hiding, burning.

I pick one up, press it to my cheek.

The cut sings. I listen.

I carve.

Not in rage

But in reverence.

As if I am chiseling a statue

beneath the marble of skin.

Carving out the rot that settled quietly in my hollows,

where joy used to bloom.

She smiles now.

Her smile is cracked, but kind.

Blood trickles from both our mouths

like a shared secret.

The reflection blurs, then sharpens.

And in the jagged glass, she leans forward

smiling, steady, proud.

“There you are,” she whispers.

It does not sing.

It screams.

Through clenched teeth

and a throat raw from silence.

It is not wings and sky.

It is blistered feet,

bleeding on stone roads,

walking anyway.

Hope is not soft.

It is the ache in your spine

when you’ve fallen for the seventh time

and rise for the eighth,

not because you believe in miracles

but because you have to.

Hope is ugly.

It is cracked knuckles,

a mouth too tired for prayer

but whispering anyway.

It is fury and grief braided together

like rope

and you’re using it to pull yourself

from the pit.

Hope is not romantic.

It does not glow.

It drags itself

with dirt in its nails

and a knife between its teeth,

growling,

“not yet.”