My significant other
Is more other than significant now
I wish I felt better about this fact
I do not miss the now of him
I’m still in love with the then of him
When love knocks you can never know
The beauty or horror in its entourage
You believe love can conquer all
And learn that love is often not enough
My significant other left
A significant mark on me
That is hardly insignificant
-gws
The enduring redwood is dead
Meant to withstand
Storm and fire and drought
Heartwood rotted from within
Disease and neglect
Claimed their prize
A reminder that
Sometimes good things die
-gws
And so comes the end of the heaviest chapter
The plot twisted dramatically
In the hands of an unreliable narrator
Linear time fractured
Slowed
Ran backward
Perspectives shifted
Creating more confusion than clarity
Muted colors of nostalgia dull recollections
Emotional sharpness blunted
The hollow ache of a long goodbye
Completed with the deliberate placement
Of an arch-ending period.
The next act begins with a page turn
“THE NEXT CHAPTER” written atop it
-gws
Ev’ry Mother’s Day
A simple pastel bouquet
Carnations in bloom
To honor your roll in life
As mother and grandmother
-gws
I realize that this year’s Christmas
Will be my first in decades without you
That shatters me like a dropped ornament
I wanted us to be a Hallmark holiday romantic comedy
But we were, instead, a Nancy McKeon movie of the week
This year is heavy with disappointment
Like that of not finding that hoped for gift beneath the tree
Or the disillusionment of learning Santa
Is just your parents’ amateur slight of hand
Or that moment in Love Actually when Emma Thompson
Opens her gift to discover it's a Joni Mitchell CD
Instead of the expensive necklace that Alan Rickman
Bought for his sexy secretary instead of his loving wife
You keep trying to gift me expired I love yous
I let them fall to the ground like dry pine needles
Christmas lights wear glimmering halos
From the tears that well when the Carpenters croon
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
I will not hang your stocking
Or buy you a well-considered gift
I will, however, cast a Christmas wish
For you to dream of better days
As you nestle in an unfamiliar bed
That old St. Nick blesses you
With a better life ahead
-gws
You have said a lifetime's worth of, "I love you" in the last ten months
I remember that you rarely said it in the twenty-three years
When I needed to hear it like my blood needed oxygen
What am I to do with your, "I love you" now
Now that I cannot love you anymore
Oh! My heart still loves you
Still wrings drops of hope from itself
Hope hanging heavy from tear tracts
To be wiped bitterly away
Because there is no hope left
Hope is just a tether
Preventing me from moving on
From acknowledging the truth that
The third body is dead and has been for a long time
Love's hope nearly destroyed me
Consumed me
My heart will not let me pry this foolish hope from her hands
So instead, I have to lock it away
In the dark, cold, empty cavity that is my chest
Heart unable to comprehend that I do this for our own good
It screams and howls in the echoing silence
"One last chance!"
"One more time!"
"Maybe this time! Maybe! Just maybe!"
"I love you" manifests no magic here
"I love you" will not call forth a miracle for us
I still love you,
Too
But I HAVE to love me,
MORE
-gws
I plunge my hands
Into the dark soil
To harvest the fruits
Of gratitude into the light
It is practical work
Grounding work
Spiritual work
To nourish my soul
Drawing upon the root work
Already deeply planted
I turn my face to the sun
-gws
I still hold the smallest flickering flame of hope
Smoldering painfully in my belly
I keep trying to stomp it out
Smother it
But it persists
Despite the obvious futility of its existence
It will not listen to reason
Will not extinguish beneath showers of bitter tears
I must endure it
Ignore it
Until it gutters and dies on its own
-gws
Trying to figure out
who this version of me is
She feels like a stranger,
but I think I might end up
liking her
-gws
You burned every bridge
then burnt your home to ashes
Now you wonder why you stand
naked and alone in the ruins
-gws
Words Wishes and Wisdom 