I’d sit in front of fires and cry my guts out for those I had loved and fucked up. Those who have gotten close, but I’ve managed to toss by the way side, and somehow I still convince myself it was them.
I saved you from that.
I didn’t kiss you, and you didn’t kiss me. We rode three hours home though, and we talked. But I was dreaming unrealistic hope when I brought you muffins and thought you’d be excited to see me again.
But you tell me I’m the one who messed it all up.
Like the night I asked you to your second concert, but you backed out last minute and sent me a picture of the wings to a plane as you flew across the world.
But I really did mess it all up. I honestly did my part. Playing the game of check mate.
And now I’m a plastic piece of trash in the delete bin. Fuck me, trash bin, begin again, 100% sin…
I don’t know how to get through the dark clouds of autumn that are filled with rain. They drag me into the numbness I use to shut down all the pain of you. The pain coming from the story you told that I now know was a lie.
I repeat my mantra over and over again-You were a lie. You were a lie. A figment of my imagination. A mirage in the desert.
I can live my whole life with you tucked away in the deepest drawer of my heart because what I believe of you isn’t real.
Upon my cat’s ears… I tell her all my feelings. I tell her I miss you. I tell her I lost a best friend. I tell her my heart is still aching. I tell her to go to bed.
She paces back and forth for a moment, and then settles on a blanket beside me.
I tell my cat to find you. She’s the only one that hears.
The notes and chords that you strummed across my heart strings have turned to flesh-eating arrows. The punctures go so deep that my blood slowly drips down my side. Welcome to my slow death.
The grenade you hold is a lie. There is no promise of a swift end when you pull the pin. You are a hunter whose aim only causes suffering. Luring me to your circle, and leaving me to die.
I have to acknowledge that you are dead. I’ve buried you. Put the wreath on the casket. Lowered you into the dirt. Watched the fresh red roses at your grave turn into dried up petals.
Yet sadly, you’re in the same town as me. Walking. Breathing.
Where dust cannot gather on the pages, but the pages turn all the same with your memories and those of others left behind.
You’ve made the cut from me with the full reckoning force of your inherent ferocity.
I often wonder of your bellicose nature. Did it come to you by way of your ancient nordic bloodlines? Did the captors of your youth—those who ridiculed or tried to reshape the lens through which you see the world—awaken the coding of your genes?
Remember the day you took me to your childhood home? I looked out and saw a peaceful, green field, with a creek running alongside her. Did those thieves and their cruelty condemn the way you drew on the security of all that you ever knew? Did the disruption of her serenity lead you to seek out battlefields in which you learned to fight?
As a man, did the sorrows you faced as a rejected husband, lover, and protector bring you to a girl with a shadowed heart? Were you intoxicated by the way she moved—like a silk ribbon gracefully floating in air—defying gravity? Yet when you tried to hold it you found it wasn’t intended for grounding.
I pictured the boy you once described on the day you took me to your field. In that place, I felt the safety of the land and the water you once knew.
And it was there that I saw a wounded buck with blood-stained, rust-colored fur. His broken antlers forming points of sharp weapons.
His restless pace was unsure and he contemplated whether leading me down to the banks of the stream was worth leaving the solace and healing of his field.
Reaching out my hand to him, I made too quick of a movement. And with the stealth of his inner fighter, he turned away leaving me on the other side of what feels like an ocean.
And as my heart breaks, I drop down to my knees, tears falling into the creek that guards his heart. Forever unknowing if they can be welcomed as an offering of my love.
On meeting grief, I lost some of my True North. In desperate attempts to replace love lost I have sacrificed pieces of my soul. Oh, when you think you are strong in stability you think that could never happen to you. But, it’s the thing that turns your stomach inside out when it does. So if you are reading this and can relate, don’t beat yourself up.
If you aren’t done with the shadows allow them to dance themselves out. Try and keep as safe as possible because there will be moments you don’t recognize the face in the mirror or the hardness of your heart. Just keep breathing. The person you are, the love you have to give is the iron element that has always been your foundation.
If you don’t want to hold on for dear life, let go. Let blood fill your clenched, white knuckles. Or hold them tight a little longer. Listen to where you need to be and if you get there and it breaks your heart, let it break until you push back up to the surface for air. No one can pull you back in and swim to shore for you.
But those who never stopped loving you will be sitting on the sand with a sun-kissed, warm towel. And the seagulls flying high out over the ocean will squawk their familiar song. The sand dunes will rise at your back and the tall beach grasses will sway to the currents of wind blowing through your hair.
Settle in the place of refuge. Sit and gather the salt-stained tatters of your heart. Allow the tears to fall from your eyes and wash away the sandy grit that has kept them barely open. Look across the horizon where the vast ocean of darkness transforms and creates new life.
There are no expectations or rules or emergencies for you to know why you are here or when you will be ready to move. Embrace the warmth of the sunlight and feel its arms wrap your soul in its power.
It was always you and you are all it will ever be.
Poetry Collections by Nora J. Coker 