I try to find you, yet you are not here. / I’ve studied absence, fought to fill it in—

I am my soul adrift / the whole night sky denies me light / without you

I sensed your not-there in its burning life. / I listened out to feel its silence beat. / It does not speak with any human mouth.

Sometimes, I cry so hard I can feel it in my ribs. / I feel like the real me is backed into a corner inside me

Exile is a word I do not like very much, I’ve often said. You are not in exile because you are out of your home. You can be in exile at home, where you may live as a recluse, on the margins of everything. I’m not sure I’ve left my country. Wherever I am, it is among the baggage that I carry with me. That has always been the case. And we can see that even when I write about something else . . .

Oh! If you would only walk into this room again and touch me anywhere I swear I would not long for heaven or for earth more than I’d wish to stay there touched and touching you

What to do now is clear, and wordless. / You will bear what can not be borne.

She used “I love you” / as an antidote / to pause the rot

The life the resilience Life that rises up Stands tall In spite of the horrors That people your memories Life hope and nothing else That’s the essence of our song

I must become / I must become a menace to my enemies.

I have walked through the world in a dream I didn’t want to know it I forbade myself from seeing The actual state of it My self-righteous speeches Ended once I stumbled Into this corner of the day