Something must have 

gone wrong

back when I was 

forgiving myself

‏‏‎ ‎

shedding my sins 

like the “love me not”

petals of a daisy

‏‏‎ ‎

there must have been 

a syllable to 

the spell I left out

or a verse I didn’t say 

in the right order

‏‏‎ ‎

There must have 

been more

I needed to include 

that slipped my mind,

slipped my hands, 

fell to the floor,

‏‏‎ ‎

scattered petals 

still moist to the 

touch of my bare feet.

The enormity of death can be too

much at times; the finality of it, too

overwhelming, so instead of

contemplating prayers or words of

solace, the void is filled with the

ordinary. How important these sweet

rituals, these sweet, sweet rituals of

routine that once seemed so

meaningless, but now hold the only

kind of salvation that can comfort.

Tomorrow we can talk of heaven.

The day after, discuss the roles of

death and then the philosophy of a

life well lived. At some point we

can talk about dinner plans and the

obligations of the weekend; at some

point, we must be able to compose

a way through all those things left

behind, but for now let there be

silence. For now, we can remain

together, hands close but not yet

touching, learning to form words

as if for the first time.

unlike clouds and the ripples of river currents

we still resemble our former identities

long after we have transformed into something else

sometimes the shift is so slow 

we don’t even realize the change until long after it occurs

nature is much more abrupt in the turning of season,

the molding of weather patterns and swings of daylight

she doesn’t always have that much patience and 

what she does have she saves for mountain ranges 

we are somewhere between the rock and the raindrop

realizing our transformation only in retrospection