AN ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES TRIBUTE : POETRY COLLECTION

YOU WERE HERE

In the universe beyond the deep hole,
I've asked you why you've left
and you've given me an answer
I could finally accept.
We have hour long conversations in my dreams
I ceased to call nightmares
because they always end up with
a kiss I could only assume was from heaven.
When the blue calls me,
I plunge all of me into the waters and
I call back your name in bubbles,
breaths held,
and stolen gasps,
uncaring who else hears me
as long as the wind
and the waves that carry your soul do.

Forgiveness lies in some planes
of my heart that remain
when every piece has vanished
into thin air.
They're not intact but they are here,
even when you aren't.
They have stayed
and it is in me to patch them up
together with all that I have left.

I will probably never understand
why you did what you did,
why you left when you were very aware
how many exodus I've already witnessed,
why your goodbye was dressed in
a bloody sun that would never rise again.
I have to be okay with
not knowing all the answers
if I want to keep myself from falling
off the bell tower ledge
you once rescued me from.
But I will never see turrets the same way.
I will never be as high and as weightless
as I was the night we spent on the rooftop
when all the planets aligned
into our favor.

I love you and I will keep loving you
even in your absence.
I will remember you in mad roller coaster rides,
in the free-fall from a small hill,
in the light-headedness of being on top of the world,
in the infinite spaces locked inside closets,
in sacred scripts upon post-it notes,
in mountains of words robbed off their violence,
in pews bathing in the fading sunlight and the echoing silence,
in dust-collecting pages of classics you'll never read again,
in shoes strung into tree branches,
in arboretums rich with life and secrets,
in clues you've planted your flags on,
in every epitaph you've signed
upon the surface of every heart you have abandoned.

Your reasons will never be enough
but because I love you more than I hate you
and I miss you more than I need you,
because you are more than enough than you've ever felt you were,
and because even perfect days have endings
and in this lifetime, this is ours,
I give you my forgiveness.

I love you
and I forgive you
and I will continue to live
remembering that you were here
and that you lived
madly, lovely, gloriously free.