knock knock
you knock knock again
nobody's there to ask who you are
it's too late on a school night
too early in the week
and the sun is fading faster than your determination to stay standing
grief opens the door with your mothers hands
she wears your mothers scent
she is the kind of quiet that baffles you
the steady stillness that sits upon a fountain of hardly suppressed eruptions
her lips warn of the storm before the calm
she releases the words from her belly
and suddenly it is you who is doubled over
clutching your own body
begging to be held or begging to be released
you aren't sure which
one glance at her steady shaking and you find yourself wondering
what do you call a cross between a woman and a wildfire?
your mother smiles reassuringly
and she is a breath of thick smoke
forest fires burning in her throat
and you are forced to decide which fire to extinguish
the one dancing on her tongue
or the one writing this poem
she swallows her own sadness to make room for yours
but you see straight through the smoke in the mirror image of yourself act
they saw her fires and thought she was powerful
when really
she just had a nasty habit of burning herself down
my father was not the wildfire
he was the burning mountaintop
larger than life yet undeniably vulnerable
in the wake of the wilderness
he was the dark unmoving rock
impenetrable to every 'i love you' you tried to drill into his mind
and now the mountain crumbles into a trembling tragedy
not quite all at once
but rather like a wall attempting to rebuild itself as it simultaneously chips away
you see
grief is not linear
there is no definitive start or end
the same way the spark lights far before the forest fire does
grief does not accompany loss
it precedes it
carving itself into the space between all your 'i'll call him tomorrow' s and 'i'm busy today' s
until every corner of your mind is haunted
in the empty spaces left by the memories you never took the time to make
grief holds you in her arms and whispers in your ear
the terrible truth about human beings
and why it's called the punch line
our lives are not a storybook ending
they are the greatest set up to the greatest story we will ever tell
decades of escalating to the final moments when it all supposedly comes together
and we finally appreciate the depth of the life that preceded them
and when it ends
when the chips all fall out of place
that is the great and terrible punch
line
to the gut
the perpetual pain of the punch to every part of you that misses him
how poetic of you to weep in words and not water
grief is not the punch line
grief is the reminder that
knock knock
who's there?
no one, not anymore
we are the punch lines
it is our inevitable absences in the moments that matter
that remind us what it is to be human
or perhaps more importantly
what it is to be insatiably lonely
knock knock
who's there?
an aching soul trapped inside the burning m(ount)a(i)n
reaching for the spaces that no longer laugh at his jokes
he is uncomfortably aware of his own mortality
of the great punchline that sews itself into his existence
why did the man cross the universe?
he dismisses the question
perpetually silent
allowing the earthquake tremors in his hands to pose a question of their own:
if a mountain collapses in a forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it cry for help?
YOU ARE READING
Where Poems Come to Die
Poetryjust the little things that float into my head when i should probably be asleep.
