Just like the sun can warm your skin
and seep down, into your bones
it’s words that can reach in and touch your soul

And I will paint
a beautiful world

I’ll write every word
that I’ve kept locked
beneath my tongue

to stir the color in your petals,
and the light inside your heart

I was born in springtime
many years ago now.
Before the nine months prior,
I was nothing

I did not exist.

It’s because of this that I’m certain
I haven’t always been Here

Which makes it hard to explain
when I’m sitting by the lake,
nothing but air and color
blue sky
blue water
the smell of everything
green and breathing
in the white of the sun,

that anchored in moments like these
I am filled with a different kind of certainty.
That this place has always been my home,
and I have always been Here to feel it

that I’m not part of one segment
that begins and ends
alive,
right now,
between the two dates
of my tomb

because I never began
and I’ll never end
and somehow,
I will always be right Here

When we lose someone, we don’t just lose them Here, today.
We lose every future day

People will say to focus on the memories,
the good times,
to hold them close and glowing, always,
in the crumbling chambers of your heart

they’ll say there will always be happiness there,
back then, where we’re still with them.
And there’s a gratitude that comes with that

But that is not why we grieve.
Memories are not what we lose when something ends
—no, that comes much later.
What we lose is the ability to form new memories.
The chance to refresh what will, now,
inevitably fade
No matter how reluctantly we hold on
No matter how deep we root our fingers
into wisps of images that will now
only degrade
in our desperate grip,
changing and corroding, ever so slightly,
each time we replay them in our minds.
Until they only resemble what it is we have lost,
what we yearn to relive, and remember.
Until their glow dims to a heavy echo
in those chambers of our heart

that is why we grieve.

I’m casting my line far out
fishing in times that haven’t happened yet,
and in places that I’ll never be again
for thoughts that shake me,
for words that mean
anything at all

The steps are easier now,
the shackles we’ve broken
lay limp
in the earth behind us

And though each forward motion
chafes
the skin rubbed raw
where they once hung,
I’m grateful for the breeze
that stings there now.

And I don’t know where we’re going
but you can lean on me, if you like
we’ll walk together

And should there come some nights
where the echo of the past
is loud enough to hinder sleep,
I’ll be there
and so will you

to remember,
when the other can’t,
that life is waiting
and it’s beautiful

That this road yawns open,
just ahead,
the whole world
is waking up to greet us

And people will often say
their perfect day
is a bright blue horizon,

but how much brighter
the world feels,
sky busy with clouds,
and someone to share them with

Rebuilding yourself isn’t supposed to feel good
it’s supposed
to burn

to bring you
to your knees,

and for a moment
you might forget what the light looked like.

But when you re-emerge in the smoke of you,
two bold eyes
staring back from your reflection,
not a trace of darkness veiled there,
you will feel an exhilaration
you hadn’t been sure
you would ever feel again