I can’t write this
I can’t speak this
I can’t paint, dance, sculpt, play this
It just is
the burn between my bones
The bleeding from my lips
shroud my skin in hues
my dry eyes can’t color
Ignorant of earth’s hum
I stutter out of tune
skies tumble and turn
in the gravity of it
I plunge my hands into the soil
to feel a thousand years
and slap my empty palms
I reach to meet the sun
my arms useless
as butterfly wings
in the rain
I touch photographs
one by one to my tongue
taste spring, summer
fall, winter’s still
without you
I ache the not to be
the left behind
the null of it
