WHY I WRITE A POEM A DAY

The silence is what I didn’t plan for,
how it isn’t quiet at all
but terribly loud,
this constant pounding
of having you gone.

How the absence of you
is actually an enormous thing,
a pressure I can’t seem to slide
out from underneath,
so much heavier
than if it was the real you
still here,
pushing
on my heart.

The suddenness
is also in a different category
of time,
too fast for breath
or even blinking,
and I keep begging
the blank air
for just a few more moments,
a chance to negotiate
to protest
to say goodbye.

But I know
that I can’t wait
in the wishing.

You wouldn’t want
that for me.

And so I sit
in the only feeling
that is still
the right size.

My love for you.

It never had edges
to begin with
and so it remains,
everywhere.

Perhaps you can still feel it.

Perhaps you are it.

Perhaps that is how we all end,
which is not to end at all
but just transform
one sudden day
into love,
the only thing
that ever mattered.