To love with such abandon
That every tiptoe
Becomes its own ballet
In white mittens
Stalking touch
Corralling it
With dire calls
Each shout its own
pulse of gravity
That pulls heartstrings
Inside hands
That tells a story
For someone else to end
With oxytocin punctuation
Gladly, though truthfully
Never settled
for very long
To be a soft factory
Of precious contact
Is to have smokestacks
That billow solace
and stardust
by drew w sinclair
I carry my grief in my feet.
I miss you to the tune of
the click of heels on concrete leadened with summer heat,
to the squish of sandals on the ocean bottom
that can’t help but sing of childhood.
Grief landed on my shoulders
and I promptly shrugged it off;
I need those for other things
carrying my child
washing dishes
typing your obituary
It slid down my chest and made a claim to my heart
but I evicted it from there, as well,
I do not deal in clichés—
Besides, you already claimed it;
I’ve not the space for another.
Of course, my legs were next,
but their sinews would snap
if they dwelled on permanence.
It’s been a while since we played soccer at Rowley,
Forgive me,
I’m out of practice.
Naturally, it fell to the one remaining place
on this body that keeps me from you.
I felt it lodge itself deep in my tendons
and radiate to my toes.
So every Saturday,
I walk from my doorstep to yours
and watch the concrete under me
leach heat like a foreign planet.
I measure eternity
in paces
to wherever you are.
Trees, why do you continue to grow?
Haven’t you heard?
The poet has stopped writing.
Why do you look upon your homeland?
Forget the smoke over your rooftops,
For the poet has stopped writing.
The trees ask,
Has he died?
No.
Then he was no poet at all.
And we will keep growing,
shedding tears over our homeland’s rooftop
The Deception of Sparks
Came when I first met Her
And instantly they flew
On that day
In that moment.
In that second
But
Before they hit the ground
They changed
In midair
To arrows
Then daggers
And bullets
But
By then…well
You know the rest.
by
blaire baron
Sometimes
it crawls in through an email
adorned with an ominous subject line
like Grandma
or Call me.
Sometimes
it’s an invite to a group chat
and once
I even found death
hidden between the lines
somewhere in the comments section.
In such a way yours passed right through me
like an apparition passing through a stone wall.
I am since savoring your missingness
biting off morsels
of photographic evidence
– your hair falling into your eyes
– you immortalized
for as long as the servers hold.
I find you in pixels
found lost in an upload
of masquerade balls
and the cozy debauchery
of those early aughts
pixels of my eyes meeting yours
– your hair falling into your eyes
– your eyes gazing down at a lit cigarette
and I can still feel your eyes on me
if I stare long enough at mine.
Mine
dilated with love
– not one of those once-in-a-lifetime loves
but a love you carry with you through life
a love that carries you through life
softly wrapping a blanket around
the shoulders of the memories
of the cozy debauchery
of those early aughts.
A wisp of the fingers
while sharing a cigarette
kind of love.
One photo
of us wading in the floods
of the sounds of your guitar chords on my ears
– your hair falling into my eyes
– my lips a wisp on your fingers
as we share a cigarette
and the way your words ran together
as you serenaded the sun
rising over the lofts
– you daring it to finish the job
– me begging it not to.
Really though
how many more times
would we have met up anyway?
I only get to visit every few years now.
You probably wouldn’t even be in town.
We’d become just another one of those friendships
drifting into our respective middle ages.
Me, to abroad.
You, to your needles
My hair was long and thick and coarse.
It sat in braids.
It stayed restrained.
It stayed down and made itself small.
It was thinned.
It was straightened for length,
perfumed,
colored.
*No—not that color!*
There are wrong colors?
Iron out my kinks,
tear the knots from the source.
Never fix—
simply change,
and change,
and alter.
A half step closer with a small root job,
a touch-up.
Make me look better.
Make me look pretty.
Make me acceptable,
passable,
palatable.
Shape me, gel me down,
stay in the place you need me to be in.
I wish I knew how I let it all get so long.
I know, I know—
I did it wrong.
Again, it’s a cut,
a prod,
a dye,
a curl—
not those curls—soft waves!
Whiter brighter curls.
Strip the dull locks to bring the light,
wear colors to tint the water in your eyes.
The green is not yours.
That brown and tan not either.
Be whiter.
Be brighter.
Be straighter.
Be nicer.
Be more ladylike.
Speak when spoken to;
let social graces bury your screams for comfort.
Heart, don’t be constricted
Eyes, don’t shed these tears
Lips, don’t quiver
What is coming is better
than what has passed
God will reunite us again;
This moment of grief is about to transform
Into an eternity of joy.
I hope to meet you soon
In Gardens as spacious as the Heavens and the Earth
A promise of the All Forgiving, the Most Loving.
Ashes of a kindle
Soot of delusion
A façade candle
Burning love fission
Moonlight , a witness
Deciphering an illusion
Fumes of severance
Evading the shadows
Shadow of beloved
Swindling the hour
Moments all seized
Desires flew ajar
A nightingale sings
hymn of seclusion
buzzing the firefly
rhythm of fusion
Rattle of union
Hallucinates the mind
Past of unison
Fades the choir
Deafen the sound
Clatter of split
A momentous disunion
Playing canticle occult
A tethered bond
Bled the skin
Manacles of kindred
Emotions all slain
Crush the shackle
Play carol of freedom
be a destiny oracle
music of liberty anthem
blowing out the flame
melted candle of passion
follow the firefly
be the light of night legion
The past is almost gone, yet it breathes,
A whisper etched in the hollow of my chest.
A scar remains, tender, aching, alive,
A map of words unsaid, of love unexpressed.
Time, the thief with silent feet,
Stole moments we didn’t know were fleeting.
In its grasp, the hours bled,
While we danced on the edge of meaning.
Now I stand in echoes, calling,
To shadows that cannot answer back.
Every pause, every lost embrace,
Every minute, a wound, a crack.
Grief wears no clock, it holds no end,
It lives where memories start to fade.
Yet in the ache, I hear your voice,
A fragile thread in the darkness laid.
Though the past dissolves, slipping fast,
That scar—it lingers, a stubborn fire.
It burns, it mourns, yet still it loves,
A testament to all we couldn’t aspire.
Grief is a word too small to hold the weight,
A five-letter burden, too heavy, too late.
It’s love with nowhere to rest, nowhere to stay,
A wound that won’t heal, no matter the day.
They say it makes us stronger, but they don’t know,
Grief doesn’t build us; it makes us slow.
It drags us through life, numb and afraid,
Hoping for peace, but finding only the shade.
Time moves on, but we remain frozen,
Chasing something that was once chosen.
We walk through the hours with empty eyes,
Grief is the silence after the goodbyes.
It strikes without warning, a memory, a sound,
The scent of his shirt, his voice in the crowd.
And suddenly, we’re drowning in tears,
Wishing we could forget all our years.
We brace for the blows, the ones still to come,
The ache in our chest, the weight of what’s done.
Grief is the shadow that never lets go,
It clings to our hearts, and it pulls us low.
How do you live when the light feels so far,
When the person you loved is now a dead star?
How do you laugh, how do you breathe,
When grief is the thing you can’t ever leave?
It’s a thief in the night, it’s a scream in the dark,
A flood of memories that leaves its mark.
Grief takes what it wants, and it takes all of you,
And leaves you with nothing, but sorrow to chew.
Every moment is heavy, the pain is so loud,
Like a storm that’s always inside of the crowd.
We’re hollow inside, a shell with no name,
Grief has erased us, we’re never the same.
We want to stop fighting, we want to let go,
But we know we can’t, though we’re dying so slow.
We carry this burden, too heavy to bear,
A lifetime of sorrow, a life so unfair.
How do we move on when the world is too cold,
When the pieces of our hearts are broken and sold?
Grief is the scar that never quite heals,
The constant reminder of everything we feel.
So we carry on, half-living, half-dead,
With tears in our eyes and a heart full of dread.
We smile through the pain, but inside we fall,
Grief is the silence that says it all.
