notes on grief

the ivy on my house

is trying to get into the window

small hands

creeping around the glass

and throwing themselves into the crack

the valiant soldiers that fall

in the trenches

and the wet wax flows

quick down the pane

clear blood streaking the glass

they told me it was only raining

I walk hand and hand

With my sea monster

Liquid and cold

She wraps herself around my arm

And sometimes I find I stumble

In this shifting sand

Slipping on these slivers

Silver glass amidst the grey

And in falling I find

That she

My sea monster

Is no longer at my side

She’s slipped through the slits in my skin

And is stripping her way

Through my veins

Burning with her salt granules

That trace new wounds

In spirals around my soul

And suddenly I’m a seatossed flotsam

A figurehead

To a sunken ship

My sea monster stands beside me again

Wearing a familar face

For every swing of the clock

Pendulum pendulum

Drop again

Slice me in pieces

Once twice thrice

And then she’s gone again

Here I am

Panting and broken

A mermaid with legs

A womanly soul

On this wide expanse of sand

And I am alone

I am peeling off your handholds

With each breath

I find each exhalation

Is a little play of death

Sidewalk chalk

To Sistine grace

But a portion nonetheless

The sand in our sheets

That calls to the sea

And still it slides past the glass

In solemn lines of tan

A military funeral

Through this narrow channel

To the marching beat

Tick tock tick tock

And I am letting go of cold

Erasing the fingerprints

You have left on my skin

Even if this means

Raw edges and red lines

I am peeling off your handholds

In a freefall to the sea.

I would like to stab myself

With this electric current

Slit my skin

And watch the sparks pour in

Golden and blue

Small spikes of something else

I can’t control

And maybe this is the answer

Lock the door

That leads to my mansion

Of prison cells

Close the book of unhappy endings

And burn the library down

Watch the stream of spindled needles

Slide up and down my outline

I watch my shadow shrink

Under the pointed attack

And I think I will stay standing here

A shock of golden wheat

Heavy and swollen

And ready to fall back into the ground

These glittering lines gather and surround

These flexing drops of me

And my face is beaded in its glow

I never knew salt shone so bright

So here will I be

Great and golden

Frozen to the light socket

Till you want to try love again.