Empty Space

Sometimes, I don’t miss you.

Yet sometimes, I still do.

(I know I miss you right now.)

It still hurts, the way you left

without warning or true goodbye,

blocking off all contact.

It’s like I don’t exist,

like I never existed,

like we never laughed

or learned

or breathed

in the same place.

To you, I am worse than a stranger;

I am air,

the dust you flick off your coat,

the paper you crumple and throw

without a backward glance.

(When we were strangers still,

you would have said hello.

When you never knew my hurt,

you suggested a cup of joe.)

I want to scream into the empty space

that you left,

that I now inhabit. 

I want you to hear me

like you did once before.

Call it a favor, if you want.

But tell me that you know

what you did,

and why you did it.

And with the stars all aglow,

tell me goodbye,

before you run again,

so I can be at peace

that it is so.

They say I’m a fixture

in this place,

on this wall we used to both

decorate.

If I am a fixture,

then I’m that plain, wooden handle

with bright painted flowers

alight with innocence,

easy to grasp,

hiding smudges from little kids

who grab on with laughter.

Turn me,

and I’ll lead you somewhere,

or we can both go blind,

together. I promise I won’t

shut the door behind you,

that I won’t open into

others’ darkness.

You were a faucet,

a shiny metal one,

a friendly one. We all came

to drink from the outpour

you gave.

When you shut off the water

then pried yourself loose,

you fell down fast

(quickly, they say)

and scratched a notch in my handle.

Did you feel that?

Do you have a bright paint chip

from that flower you hit

on the way down?

Or did you hit your head

and forget,

and scratch the paint

onto that

cold cement floor?

Someone put you

back on a wall,

around the corner,

ten fixtures to the right.

I hope for others’ sakes

that you don’t collide again

if you fall.

I hope for others’ sakes

that you will one day recall,

not me,

but the other fixtures

that you hit

on this wall.

Then forget about them too. I know

I might be the only one who might remember

it at all.

My heart still beats strong,

but it’s bruised, on the floor.

I’m still learning to pick it up

without dropping it.

You act like everything is normal,

and maybe it is, for you.

We crossed paths once,

and I, heart in my hand,

searched your eyes, your face.

I guess I was looking for

a sign that you knew what you did.

But your eyes said,

It wasn’t me, it’s not me.

And you’re right.

It’s my fault I put my heart

in your hands, to warm for a minute.

It was cold,

so cold.

I thought your touch could revive it,

but it turns out

the jolt of the drop

as you jerked your hands away

was just what it needed to restart.

I’m still learning to let it all go

and leave it in God’s hands,

and to not keep

looking

back.

I keep writing about you

and I hate myself for it

because I’m wasting my time

when I should just forget it.

But I was never good

at sweeping things under the rug.

Or maybe I was once, 

until I walked over that rug one day

and slipped

and all the dust:

the tears,

the detritus,

my shame,

their shame

came tumbling out.

So now I try to write

to sweep it into the galaxy

where the unfortunate soul that it tickles

can at least unclog their nose

when they sneeze.

At least I’m not wasting your time, I hope.

What is it about love

that makes it poetic?

Is it just the fact that

so many people feel it?

Or is it the fact that

it can’t be described?

We grasp at it with

finite expressions,

but it’s

so

so

hard to define it.

I suppose it’s in its nature

to be undefinable.

And that’s okay.

you ran. 

why did you run? 

we were never going to force you to stay, 

we just wanted to say goodbye.

i stood,

talking to you like you were still there

not knowing at first that i was 

talking to air.

i hid

my pain when you vanished. 

i showed only my happiness 

for you. (truly, i’m happy 

for you.)

did you ever know i wished you well?

i ran

to you, and from you,

yes, 

i ran 

in circles from you,

but i couldn’t escape 

your memory, for i carried 

it in myself.

i turned

and stated my pain then,

as to the wind, wondering if it would

carry the words to you. 

i thought,

no point in hiding now

from the person i used to

never hide from.

i just wanted to ask you why,

i just wanted to hear your voice, 

in the here and now,

not as echoes in my head.

i just wanted to tell you

all the good things about you,

things put there by God,

things maybe you don’t see in yourself,

though somehow you saw the good in me

when i was so

broken.

(i’m still broken. i guess

we all are.)

i just wanted to say goodbye,

to tell you i will let go, with time

but i will never stop

praying

for you,

and for others,

for your souls,

for our shared

brokenness.

i tossed

sand over this place,

i wrote 

new memories over this place.

i looked

to the sky and let the waves carry me

forward and backward, slowly but surely

away from you.

i got

salt in my nostrils and

salt in the rope burn you left.

did you ever know i had grasped that rope?

did you ever know we had grasped that rope?

but you jerked it away and

i fell.

i lay

in the water, being washed inside

and out.

i used to think i was drowning,

i used to think the rope you threw out helped me keep

my head above water.

i think sometimes i’m still drowning,

but i’ve since learned to hold on to God’s anchor-rope.

i’m still learning.

i will

calmly leave my footprints in the sand

when i leave, walking firmly, quietly,

waves lapping at my toes. 

i will 

be washed away from memory

both quickly and gently,

though my love for everyone in this place

will stay.

i will

not run

(i hope).

I sometimes run into people

who say they miss you.

They say it freely, openly,

even repeated, with a smile.

I wonder how it felt for them,

how it feels for them.

Did it hurt? Did it throb.

Did they live with the ghost of your voice 

echoing in their head for months on end.

Did they lean on you.

Did they care so badly

your death would be one of 

their worst fears.

Did they know you cared,

or thought they knew you cared.

Did they know your birthday,

your favorite color,

the way you act when you’re nervous,

the temperature you set your home to,

tidbits about your family

and the journey that you took.

Did they both see you 

and feel the absence of you

in every breath.

Did they reach out, both tentatively

and boldly, asking questions,

asking for closure in the silence.

Please.

Did you ghost them, too.

Does it hurt? Do they learn to

forgive both themselves and you, 

and forget the pain.

Does it all come back 

to them sometimes.

Are they scared of falling again,

of depending on another who will

leave without warning. 

And do they ever keep themselves from saying,

I

miss

you

because they have already missed you

beyond words,

and that is enough.

I can’t say

“I wish I never knew you”

because for every hurt

that came after,

you gave me

five times as much good:

the memories that still make me laugh,

the words that held me, for a time,

the safety of someone I turned to.

I want to say that I know

you didn’t mean to hurt me;

maybe you thought that while

silence would hurt, I would live,

that I would be better

without you.

But I don’t have

that kind of faith in you.

I mean, we’re all human,

after all --

I’m human, too, you said --

so who knows

what you thought,

if you thought,

unless you stopped

those trains of thought.

Or maybe you knew that

you would be better

without me.

I guess I thought

that you were okay

with listening to me,

that that was okay,

and that what hurt me

couldn’t possibly hurt you.

Was I wrong?

I’m sorry for clinging to you.

I’m sorry for bothering you.

I’m sorry for any times

I crossed a line without realizing it.

But I’m not sorry for loving you

as who we were.

That love was not

the love that one holds with a partner,

the love that makes hearts flutter,

the love that mixes steadiness into headiness,

the love that most songs are about.

Yet it was love, too --

when you chip away the clinging

of a girl who was falling apart.

Underneath that,

there was love.

(There are many kinds of love,

after all.)

It’s that love that prompts me to care,

to say that

if it’s for your good that I never speak to you,

then I will shut my mouth and run;

if it’s for your good that I never hear from you,

then I will take any pain that may be done;

and if it’s for the salvation of your soul 

that I bear weight or I break,

then I will gladly break

a million

times

over

(and grow,

and grow).

I guess there’s nothing I can truly do

to ensure the salvation of your soul,

but 

I can still

pray for you.

I can still

love

you.

one.

love is a language

that is not recursively enumerable,

and the universe is woven of languages

whose number is just as uncountable.

two.

it’s okay to not have it

all together, to break

in front of others, to admit

you are just

human.

three.

who you are inside may perhaps

never change, 

(or maybe it will, 

into who you will be),

though you may have to 

wander from yourself

to find it.

four.

some boundaries

are crossed by accident,

and the best thing to do

is to openly apologize and

retreat.

five.

sometimes, you can

look at the sky

with stars in your eyes,

your soul, your mind,

the very axis of yourself

spinning, shifting.

six.

some people will write themselves

into the very fiber of your being,

then vanish without warning

when you most need them,

and sometimes, those people

will be the ones you most

needed to leave

for this season,

just this season,

whether that be a lifetime

or a day,

though they will never

ever

really leave you.

seven.

sometimes the doors 

left cracked open

are the ones

that are easiest to close,

and the doors that were never

eased slightly, almost, shut

are the ones you feel

at the back of your neck,

yawning, 

startling,

overwhelmingly

empty.

eight.

silence can be more painful

than any words,

and can say both nothing

and everything, perhaps even

things you never meant,

a jumble of confusion

and darkness

and hurt.

nine.

have grace for the people

who ghost you,

and grace for yourself,

whether they ping-pong

between a flame that

pulls you into their orbit

and a ghost that won’t

let you go,

or you were the one

who did that to them

(or yourself).

ten.

remember that

you are so loved,

even when

you don’t know it,

and that even in your greatest pain,

you are never

truly

alone.