And Now She is Gone

Category: My attempt at poetry

I will be honest with you. Everything I know about poetry came from Dead Poet’s Society. I’m not even sure if any of this is poetry.

Thank you for reading.

  • It Lives With Me

    It Lives With Me

    I live with loneliness.

    It’s a loneliness that crawls over me. It gets into my head and makes me doubt whether I am good enough.

    It attaches itself to my most personal parts and tempts me in ways that make me feel ashamed.

    It follows me like a bastard shadow, and trips me up as it kicks my feet.

    I try to navigate my way through, but it is an endless labyrinth of stone with sharp corners and walls covered in rotting ivy.

    Sometimes I can hear it. It’s a low static thumping that keeps me awake at night and clouds my mind during the day. It whispers words that punch deep and bruise me dark.

    I don’t know if it will ever leave, I don’t if I will ever get used to it.

    So, I live with loneliness.

  • First to Last

    First to Last

    On the first night they met, their worlds collided, and he was excited and uncertain of their future.

    On the first night they slept together, he lay in bed after, watching her sleep and he felt a peace wash over him

    On the first night in the house, he truly felt at home for the first time.

    On the first night they knew of cancer, he lay in bed watching her sleep and he was terrified and uncertain of their future.

    On the first night in a hospital, he sat in the chair bedside, and he wished he could be as brave as her.

    On the first night he had to call paramedics for help, he wondered if he was doing enough.

    On the first night he accepted her fate, she held his hand, looking into his heart, and said to him.

    “You have more story to tell”

    On the last night, he lay in a bed suddenly too big, and he cried, terrified and uncertain of his future

  • Too many empty rooms

    Too many empty rooms

    Something has changed and he can’t understand it.

    The silence is new. It is a silence he has never heard before. It is loud, and intense as it rings in his ears.

    He tries to fight it by opening the windows to let the world in, but even the world can’t penetrate the walls.

    Occasionally he hears her laughter, but even that is only a whisper that floats just out of his reach.

    Each step he takes on the stairs is loud and violent, and they stretch and twist making the climb more uncertain.

    The doors are cold to his touch, a block of ice behind each one.

    He tries to adapt. He tries to get used to it. But understanding evades him.

     And then he sees it. It stares him in the face and mocks his recognition.

    All the rooms are empty.

  • The Hoodie

    The Hoodie

    He is standing in line at the grocery store. There is woman and her daughter behind him. He can hear them giggling and then the mother taps him on the shoulder.

    “My daughter and I think your hoodie is very funny, can I ask where you got it?”

    He looks down and recognizes the hoodie. He is wearing one of her hoodies. This was the first hoodie he bought her. On the back there is a picture of a penguin and beneath the penguin is written

    I AM F*#&!@^ FREEZING!

    He was so excited when he purchased it. He knew she would love it. He became a little child again, waiting for the special toy he saved 50 box tops for. He just could not wait to see her face. On the day it arrived she was not home. So he sat at the kitchen table and waited. When she arrived, he went to her, he couldn’t wait for her to see it. She looks at him surprised at the package. She opens it and gets excited because it is a new hoodie. She had not even seen the design on the back. “Look at the back” he says, and she does. Her face lights up and she laughs. He always loved that sound, her laughter. Especially when it came as a surprise to her.

    She loved it. And she wore it. Everywhere. She wore it when they went to see Patton Oswald at the Kennedy center. She was wearing it the day they picked up Baxter, and the day they he died. She was wearing it when he drove her to the first surgery to remove the cancer. And now he wore it.

    “It is my wife’s.” He doesn’t know why he refers to her in present tense, He knows it allows the conversation to continue. The daughter sighs and says “aww, how sweet, you share hoodies!?” The mother laughs and says, “I can’t get my husband to let my borrow his tools, much less wear his clothes.”

    “She’s dead. Last year.” And he turns to pay for his groceries. The mother and daughter are shocked. He sees the mother say something to him, but he doesn’t hear anything. He thoughtlessly turns and says thank you and walks to his car.

    It is easier to announce her death bluntly, one might say impolitely to strangers.

    He doesn’t care if he offends them.

    It makes these little moments go by faster.

  • A new kind of fear

    A new kind of fear

    




    This is a different kind of fear.

    Not like the fear I felt the night I asked her to marry me.

    Not like the fear I felt when we bought our first house.

    Not like the fear I felt when she looked at me and said “I have cancer.”

    Not like the fear I felt when she told me she wanted hospice.

    This is a different kind of fear.

    This kind sticks to me, like sap from a tree.

    This kind of fear stings my eyes like the sweat of a hot summer day.

    And I have to face it alone. 

    It’s that kind of fear. 
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
    Here She Comes Again
    
			
    Here She Comes Again
    
			
    

    




    Here she comes again

    She sits next to me on the couch, and we watch a movie. Then I go to bed, and she says “good night, I’ll see you tomorrow”

    The next time I see her, she is standing behind me in the kitchen as I load the dishwasher. She says nothing. Just watches me with that smirk on her face. You know the one, it says “oh yeah. he’s mine” proudly and boldly.

    And then. In the middle of the night, when I’m lying there staring at the ceiling praying for sleep, she comes. She lies next to me, drapes her arm across my chest, and we both drift off to sleep. She has this quiet little snore, but I never tell her. I keep it for me.

    Sometimes, when it’s quiet in the house, I will hear her laughing at something she is watching in her office. She is going to share it with me, and I will have to feign that I enjoyed it as much as she did. And I do.

    And now I am driving to anywhere and she is in the passenger seat yelling at the car in front us, “THE LINES ARE THERE FOR A REASON JACK ASS!!” and I laugh and watch as she turns to me and says “Hey, let go get pancakes”, And we do. At midnight.

    These little moments make up the day. They haunt me when I’m awake and tease me in my sleep.

    It is vicious, insidious, and painful.

    But it is necessary. Because these images must stay with me. No matter how cruel it may be I can not, will not let go.

    I know someday they will lessen, and it won’t hurt so much to see her.

    Right…?
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    Till Death Do Us Part
    
			
    

    




    Till death do us part. 
    I initially was not fond of these words in our vows. 

    They were a heavy thing to say on the day we got married. A day of celebration. I found the term to be depressing. They even felt threatening, as if the something or someone did not want us to get too comfortable in our new life together. 

    Little did I know the truth behind them.

    When we first heard the words “it’s cancer” our vows came rushing back to me, “till death do us part” smacked me across the face and then landed in my lap like a cold, wet blanket. 

    The words were suddenly very real. They went from being just out of my sight, like a shadow observed from the corner of my eye, to standing right in front of me. Laughing and pointing at my naivete. 

    No one expects “till death do us part” to turn out to be true. You imagine you will at least get a good 50 years with your person. My parents did, their parents did. Why not us?

    She and I would imagine ourselves as the old couple that all the teenage girls would observe and say, “I hope I find that kind of love someday.”  

    She and I would joke about being the funniest, most chaotic couple in the retirement home. I would flirt with the nurses and she would assure them I was harmless. “He’s always been the horny one,” she would say to them. 

    Our life together was cut short. We were not allowed to grow old together. Fate denied us that. And I was thrust into a dark and confusing room without her to guide me. 

    “Till death do us part” has meaning to me now. Weight. It is tangible and I understand their purpose.

    They are there to make us recognize that we are not in control. Death is out there, and we are powerless to stop it. 

    Those words are meant to ensure we do not take the time we have with them for granted. They remind us to focus on every minute. To make an etching of every hour. To record every second of your time together. 
    Do not dwell on the words. Do not let them interfere. But do not forget them. 

    I did. I let them fade into the background because I was convinced nothing could happen to me and her. We would have plenty of time. We would experience all of life together.

    Till Death Do Us Part.