(no subject)
i've never cried while writing a poem before...here it is
so here we are again.
i know that i am lost to you,
and that it takes a second to recognize who i am.
me.
the same girl that you could not get out of your head.
the one you were in love with,
the one you encouraged.
how can sickness get the best of you?
i know that you are not the same,
and i sometimes get the feeling that your family
your wife
your daughter
have already started to live their lives
without you.
have begun the uneasy adjustment of
living without
a husband
a father.
while you are away at the hospitals,
and teaching that one
lingering class.
and here i am.
connected to you mainly through memories,
but also through appreciation
and love
and respect.
and i know that you will die.
and that murders me.
that thought, the knowing
that one day, you will just be snatched away,
that almost makes me want to become religious.
now when i see you,
i have to lie about when i have to leave.
i look at the clock more, i try to come up with
questions that take a long time to answer,
but are just so stupid.
and you answer them,
ask me things i know you don’t care about.
you can’t get excited about ideas,
you repeat yourself,
there are so many things that this illness has done to you,
to me,
that i am beginning to believe i have a little of it too.
we were partners in the matter
of life,
and the push to write,
and understand.
now you are evaporating right in front of me,
and there is not only nothing i can do,
but no words i can offer you or your family.
this silence is the worst.
it hurts so much to let you go like this,
to not be able to show you and your family
how much i am hurting because
i know
you and they
would be broken,
if i were to speak.
my words would pound out,
like a thousand boulders
my body would collapse
onto a ground that shakes as much as my voice.
i would imitate a small girl
finding out her father has died,
and that would not be too far off from the truth.
because you are a father to me.
and there were times i wanted to say that,
but didn’t.
i wanted that love you gave them,
and at times, i had it
and more,
and i bathed in it.
took small gulps.
again, back to the point
of you.
i just cannot see a world with you under its ground.
buried underneath,
where mowers and visitors
tremble the earth above you.
though i do not talk to you
or see you, just the mere
thought of you being somewhere,
still there,
is enough to let me write of chance.
your death will tear a piece of
my identity off, and you will
keep that with you.
lovers of the mind,
explorers of possibility and truth,
i will be left
by myself.
so here we are again.
so here we are again.
i know that i am lost to you,
and that it takes a second to recognize who i am.
me.
the same girl that you could not get out of your head.
the one you were in love with,
the one you encouraged.
how can sickness get the best of you?
i know that you are not the same,
and i sometimes get the feeling that your family
your wife
your daughter
have already started to live their lives
without you.
have begun the uneasy adjustment of
living without
a husband
a father.
while you are away at the hospitals,
and teaching that one
lingering class.
and here i am.
connected to you mainly through memories,
but also through appreciation
and love
and respect.
and i know that you will die.
and that murders me.
that thought, the knowing
that one day, you will just be snatched away,
that almost makes me want to become religious.
now when i see you,
i have to lie about when i have to leave.
i look at the clock more, i try to come up with
questions that take a long time to answer,
but are just so stupid.
and you answer them,
ask me things i know you don’t care about.
you can’t get excited about ideas,
you repeat yourself,
there are so many things that this illness has done to you,
to me,
that i am beginning to believe i have a little of it too.
we were partners in the matter
of life,
and the push to write,
and understand.
now you are evaporating right in front of me,
and there is not only nothing i can do,
but no words i can offer you or your family.
this silence is the worst.
it hurts so much to let you go like this,
to not be able to show you and your family
how much i am hurting because
i know
you and they
would be broken,
if i were to speak.
my words would pound out,
like a thousand boulders
my body would collapse
onto a ground that shakes as much as my voice.
i would imitate a small girl
finding out her father has died,
and that would not be too far off from the truth.
because you are a father to me.
and there were times i wanted to say that,
but didn’t.
i wanted that love you gave them,
and at times, i had it
and more,
and i bathed in it.
took small gulps.
again, back to the point
of you.
i just cannot see a world with you under its ground.
buried underneath,
where mowers and visitors
tremble the earth above you.
though i do not talk to you
or see you, just the mere
thought of you being somewhere,
still there,
is enough to let me write of chance.
your death will tear a piece of
my identity off, and you will
keep that with you.
lovers of the mind,
explorers of possibility and truth,
i will be left
by myself.
so here we are again.