While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates.
You must wait till it be digested, and then
amusement will dissipate the remains of it.
-- Samuel Johnson

in search of a base case

all out of druthers, I choose my life again
my feelings have fractal dimension
both self-similar and sensitive to initial conditions
zoom in and see the real me.

on the road, in the hills
the end of free-fall
skydiving through clouds of glass

try to imagine how this came to be
I never remember it the same way twice
it happened every way imaginable

every image of the future has the bright sadness
of my hapiness and our demise
I want to be sincere
if there are other ways I will find them
it isn't up to me.

my shadow and I
continue our impossible search.
is it inevitable that
the sun sets in the west?

---

let it be

I found my soul in your lost+found
a purpose for long nights at your comatose side,
a mirror for my lonely heart
all I wanted was the best thing ever
bewitched

born into your discontent
I cried for attention
like a child for his mother
becalmed

I could swear it is yesterday.
that's not smog. It's my cloudy eyes.
bereft

I had come to think my suffering unalloyed.
an unbroken string of accidents
the glint of truth reflects off my pyrite heart
bestirred

---

when I felt the wind of my love
being pulled into your void,
I remembered trying to talk myself out of loving you.
And the utter futility of it.

a chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity
bright sun glasses hide the silly-putty doubt
what remains when the sun burns away what you don't want?

---

spinning on a long rope attached to your center
even slight speeds crush me

those are not parentheses you live in,
they are my tragedie et comedie

my anger traps me in
my claustrophobic soul

you always wanted to kill me
so I gave you my life as a birthday present.
I guess I should have seen it coming.

---

At some point in our walk you knew what would happen. I thought our path was clear. It wasn't. A wall blocked it. A walk implies progress, and we could make none. You told me to climb on top of the wall. I did. I could see everywhere familiar to us. Like any area so big, it was full of happy and sad places; the places we had been together. I turned around to see what lay on the other side of the wall. It was cloudy, foggy, and so far down to the ground, I couldn't make anything out.

I was suddenly scared. I looked back at you, and your smile told me it would be ok. But I was unconvinced. How could I just turn my back on all I knew and plunge to who-knows-what terrain? You pushed me off the wall.

I suppose I should be grateful. I'll let you know when I land.