Tag: #Loss

Jagged

Written in response to:

https://onewomansquest.org/2020/05/11/vjs-weekly-challenge-95-bits-and-pieces/

Pieces broke away,
pebbles and stones
chipped from a boulder.
The edge of a pane of glass
broken off, no longer smoothly square,
but rough ridged like a broken thumb nail,
begging to be filed away.

Pieces broken away,
missing in wordlessness,
cannot be found.
Jig saw together the rest,
glue, duct tape,
what is left,
never to imitate new, unbroken.

Broken, hollowed parts,
make for an ever incomplete,
an always abyss
to fall headlong into,
always a scratchy roughness to scrape
a knee, an elbow, a hand.
Always a sharp edge to slice open
an abdomen, an arm, a femoral artery, a throat.

No. No. No.
Everything, everything
at once, best kept at arm’s length.
Never can such wounds be allowed
in the here,
in the now.

Sweeter Morning

image courtesy of The View from Great Island

Warm now on the edge of summer.

Still, I shiver gathering coffee to my lips.

I war with the craving for a cigarette.

When I take the morning deep into my chest,

The air lacks nicotine.

Years since I kicked that habit,

Yet some mornings it does seem

Nothing could be finer

Than caffeine and nicotine—

But it would not be you and me

Starting our day outside on the covered patio,

Watching for butterflies,

Drinking our coffee and smoking our cigarettes,

Dreams drifting in clouds of nicotine and steam.