Their memories are vague concepts to me.
Myself, who never knew their fields:
I can only catch glimpses from a distance,
aided by stories told across chasms of time
and left written in the sand when the empathy tides recede
on memory shores.
…
Time after time I cast those stones back to its pinned head
Bloodied it raw — tore the faceless mass to ribbons
A pebble for every tear trapped behind a dry eye
A rock for every scream buried in a tight chest
…
…
I find myself calmed
Somehow in this acceptance
…
…
Today I think about all the tenderness I felt
That they could just never hold on to
That I couldn’t place their fingers around
Not knowing if it was their failure
Or mine
…
Those who plan their own demise can choose exactly how long to grieve their own end before they go.
Will I be tempered in the crucible
Of this cutting new awareness,
Maybe even sharpened to a razor’s edge?
Is this really grief for the fantasy now dead,
Or is it regret for seven years tainted
With a lie I told myself?
(A continuation of 98% Sure)
It was and is the right choice.
I still know this with 98% certainty.
So
I wonder if what’s really making me so sad about this now
Is not that what could have been never was
Is not that I continue to resolutely choose this
But why it’s so certainly right
And how part of me wishes
(In my selfishness)
It was all a big mistake
And I am able
And actually deserve
To add to humanity’s pool of the world’s only
Truly unconditional love
October 8, 2024
I was always so sure.
98% sure, I would think.
“Just isn’t for me”, I would say.
Brief stream-of-consciousness response to the writing of a friend.