in the blink of an eye,
one bite of baby’s breath,
or a step too soon across the street,
and a heartbeat becomes a memory,
an empty seat that screams:
remember me.
Tag: death
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one more dead girl
unfurl my past devotions
like clues on a table,
scrutinize the corpse’s life,
ask about her type
and hear the larvae gossip
“light-eyed arsonists”
interrogate the dry-eyed suspects
and ask them why they spoke in bullets,
why they cannonballed into her chest,
and how they raised a warzone
from a blooming garden.
detective, if i had known it’d end like this,
with me facedown in a shabby bed
and my ghost wailing from the roof
for justice (or revenge),
while watching the world continue to spin
despite how violently i departed from it,
i’d like to think
i would’ve ignored the text messages,
i would’ve kept walking past
—the wraith of my heartbreak
haunting me each time
i dare considered a third
or fourth chance.
detective, can’t you understand?
they strike me like matches
against sandpaper
and wonder why the city burns
and my inner child seethes.
i was just a spark they toyed with,
but i love men who point
their guilty fingers,
and it’s always at me.
they could never be blamed
for the forest fire,
for the body in a coffin
or the ashes in an urn,
an overdose in a junkyard
or one more dead girl.abuse, anxiety, death, depression, grief, heartbreak, life, love, love poem, love poems, love poetry, melancholygalaxies, poem, poems, poetry, quote, relationships, sad, sad poetry, trauma, writing
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chrysanthemums, carnations and cemeteries
you’re chrysanthemums
and carnations
in a sunless cemetery;
you’re the eruption of life
where there isn’t any.
love is a legacy,
an everlasting barrage
of memories
so brilliant and blinding,
i still catch your gaze
twinkle and blink
in photographs;
i grieve in lonely hallways
and still hear you laugh.death, grief, heartbreak, life, loss, love, love poem, love poems, love poetry, melancholygalaxies, poem, poems, poetry, quote, sad, sad poetry, writing
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funny how i breathe
yet you treat me like i’ve died.
though i think to myself
if a funeral was held
you’d just reject the invite.
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“footprint”
i grew up wanting to be a tattoo on someone’s arm, terrified that instead i’d eventually peel away and fade like the stickers on a binder. each headstone reposed in a cemetery was one more morbid reminder of how impermanent a body is, how forgettable names can be after they’re said and how unrecognizable faces look after you’ve passed them by. but as i walk, will my feet imprint the earth? if i’m not seen or heard, do i really exist? and if i’m forgotten after i’m buried in a coffin or stuffed in an urn, did i ever? can i be remembered without a legacy to leave behind in a book or a painting, or on a screen or from a skill? they say people never forget how you make them feel, so perhaps i’ll find comfort in being kind and i’ll hope that a gentle heart is enough to persist even after it’s stopped beating.
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“to tubby”
i grew and grew with you, from seedlings to sprouts and into dandelions. you were a love as warm as a yellow petal and most certainly as pure as any love could be and any love i’ve known.
but in ways you were the hardest to survive, because you were not the type of yellow that could or would return after a lonely nightfall. you were a “falling star” type of yellow – your presence in the world felt like seconds.
i wonder often, if you liked the flower planted in your memory. i wonder if you heard me when i babbled to it, enjoying the idea that perhaps it was you and you were just kind enough to prolong the goodbye.
and then i felt somewhat silly in my sorrow, for feeling hurt once more when you wilted all over again.
“it’s just a dying houseplant.”
and it died.
but i kept it anyway.death, depression, grief, heartbreak, loss, love, love poem, love poetry, melancholygalaxies, poem, poems, poetry, quote, sad, sad poetry, writing
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“callie”
i am hardly a skeptic when death comes to visit; i pray most for heaven, at the end of every something i had hoped would exist forever—as though i may someday find it again, in some far-off place, surely too holy for my ambivalence to reach.
death, grief, heartbreak, loss, love, love poem, love poetry, melancholygalaxies, poem, poetry, quote, sad, sad poetry, writing
