For those who jumped, and for those who didn’t jump but wish they had

When you jumped, I cried because
I wished I’d been holding your hand as you fell.
When you were gone, I screamed at the sky to
take me, too.
When I was alone, I was wedged
in a corner of darkness, and I had locked myself in.
I’d wished you’d carried me with you, because
I was just as trapped, just as lost; the books weighed me down, too, you know.
I was filled with just as much hate and hopelessness and
cynicism, just as thirsty for nothingness. 

Now, when I laugh with my whole
heart, I wish you were here laughing, too.
When I sit in the sun and feel the Earth kiss my nose,
I wish you were beside me because
I am learning sometimes
it takes a while sitting in the sun to feel its warmth,
and sometimes when we finally
stumble out
of the darkness, it takes a while for our eyes to
adjust to the light.
But when we can finally get a glimpse of it, it is spectacular.
I wish you were here to see it.

Locksmith

Every word from
his lips weld your shackles.
And you stand there, under
his spotlight to be
pinned, poked, prodded,
criticized and analyzed
content with the pain as long as
his eyes are only on you.

For so long you were my monster,
restrained and chained to protect us.
But from here I see you
once willingly locked those shackles
to your limbs, swallowing the key.
But his piercing words
have bled you dry, and now
you cannot leave.
You are in chains
and he must protect himself from the
damage.

Aleeyah

I remember sunny times,
ballet class and nursery rhymes;
times of you and me.

I cry for all the things I’ve lost:
friends and lovers I misplaced in the dark.
For all that I’ve forgotten;
memories fade to dreams and all my past is gone.

I cry for every time I think of you and can’t seem to recall much.
I cry for all the times I’ve woken up, seeing your face
in my dreams, and not really knowing it was you at all. 

Pick Your Poison

I want what I cannot
put into words:
the dousing of the flame
which reminds me you are not mine.
The silencing of my thoughts
which day in, day out
turn, turn, turn to you.
To dam the flow of
you that seeps into my dreams.
To snuff your constant presence
in all of me.
They say
there are two ways out.
I must pick my poison. 

Pink Thread

You wrapped your finger around the loose end
and pulled and pulled and pulled until
it broke;
an absentminded afterthought
hurriedly shoved into the armrest of my car
on your way out.
The hemmed end of your shirt left frayed and
blowing in the wind as
you walked away;
a sad reminder of how it used to be before
it’s innards were pulled out.

Weeks fall away and it still sits there—
the small ball of pink thread;
the mark of your territory on my heart.
The last piece of you. The only thing
holding us together.

River

Even when i can’t see you,
you are here
in the rivers of my mind, flowing
from one current to the next, so that
you are not always a straight line, but
a jumble that i sometimes lose sight of for a moment
behind the mountains and hills.
i feel you again and again and again and 
each time, just before you disappear, i know you 
will reappear in the bends of the river;
you always will.