Guest Poem: At a Loss

At a Loss

I remember breathing
rhythmically rising
resisting release and then
collapse

I remember when I could say your name
without the pain
but there’s a pang now that haunts

Like a tongue twister
to choke then elope
to wed my feeble fears to my throat
And now I spit out your name
like blood let from vein
straining to rid the body of poison

I push it out
to teeter in front of my eyes
and slip ever further out
fading
until it plunges
like an anchor pulling my nerves
to the bottom of the murky depths
to deal with the dismal questions
cascading over morality,
mortality,
leaving me sunk

In a year I won’t remember your voice
not due to a choice
but rather to mirror a burnt out star
you’re already gone
but just starting to fade from my sight
I see shared memories
and praise be I still can hear your laugh when I close my eyes

Don’t listen to the placating lines that death is for the blessed
death is not a beautiful thing
it is deprivation on a string
perpetually dragging us to end
like twisters at the bottom of the sink

Today there’s grass growing on your grave
company to decay
and you aren’t Jesus
you won’t rise again

I remember the last embrace
more than most can say
but that doesn’t make my lingering love for you be anything more than a ghost
hung next to coats in the back of my closet
waiting for a cold spell to shroud me
cling to my frigid frame

Now loving you is like drawing lazy loops
with fingers over the sunset
with one eye closed
in hopes to translate an escaping embrace

Loving you is like loving an idea
to hope to have history hold me,
to scold me,
to encourage my actions is to pray for action in theory
so be our love like gravity
feeling the force as I’m flung
splayed on the ground
just to know your love

And be it merely a whisper
loosely surrendered from my lips
to confess
I know you’re gone

For links to poetry prompts, or if you missed out on what I’m doing for National Poetry Month, check out the first post here.

To end each post, there will be this call to share your own work. Whether it’s something that you write as soon as you finish reading this post, or it’s a poem you’ve posted or had published, place the whole poem in the comments or put a link to it. A brief description before the link will help me process comments faster, so I know they’re not spam.

Also, feel free to share links to poems or spoken word performances by other poets. I hope this month will bring a wide variety of poetry to everyone’s attention. Also, there will be posts on my author Facebook page, a link to which can be found on the right-hand side, that will include spoken word performances and links to work of other poets, which will not appear here.