Missing U

 

This is a eulogy: _____

It is poetic and sweet and filled with quotes on love and loss

It does not speak of regret or shame or selfishness

It does not repeat the profanities or detail the knuckles rubbed raw from wait and worry nor spill

forth secrets of last ditch, backdoor deals with God

 

And this is what you say to those who send you their “sympathies:” _____

You do not tell them that their “time heals all wounds” dribble makes you want to punch them in

the face or that their “life goes on” garbage makes you want to cry

 

And here are the ashes, the ones you haven’t buried yet:  _____

The ones cradled in an urn that you wake to every morning and fall asleep to every night

 

And here is one year later: _______

Which feels the same as the day of, yet you hide it better now

 

Here is you grocery shopping, dining with friends, making love, working, driving, laughing,

crying, living: _____

 

And this is   yo_____

yesterday, today, tomorrow

internally and externally forever

 

And this, this is _ _ _ _ _

 

 

Shadows and Silhouettes

 

We were gypsies in a past life

That’s what my mom liked to joke

But she never smiled when she said it

 

We were rootless beings

Like shadows in the sun,

Ours had an expiration date

And once reached,

We’d fade out of one life and into another

 

We were swindlers of stolen identities

Collectively masked in appearance, faceless composites of our surroundings

The owners of foreign bodies,

Our marrow was shaded by a false reflection, alien even to ourselves

 

Like a game of cards

We were ruled by chance

But we knew how the hand should be played

Yet, the outcome was never in our favor

 

We were fortunetellers of reinvented histories

Our palm lines like trail makers leading us to a better destination (or so we believed)

But none of us could have predicted how badly we would misinterpret it all

In the end, the crystal ball was not clouded, but our vision was

 

When the darkness set in

We blended in with the night

We were opaque silhouettes waiting to be seen

Waiting for the light to illuminate us and set us free