She was the type to feel calm in the midst of a storm, and unease in moments of peace.
Planned exits, not entries, and needed the warmth of the sun to fall deeply asleep.
She craved the comfort of loving another, but felt uncertain being loved.
And could never find sense of accomplishment in any amount that she’d done.
The type to kill flowers, but plant them around her; to like weeds more than purposeful growth.
Would seek out the goodness and truths of all others, but would lie to protect her own oaths.
She was the type to be wading and drowning, but rather tread water than lightly.
To burden another, even if they offered, was much less fearful than fighting.
I reach for you, and my hands feel flesh but not person.
I call for you, and my voice echoes back to me.
I ache for you, and I feel unfamiliar.
My soul tries to rip itself from my skin and bones and cement itself in each present moment, because the past is closer to you than each passing moment into the future.
Something is here within you, but it is a stranger.
It doesn’t know me; it doesn’t want to.
I am a passenger on the wrong train, powerless as I leave you at the station. Grasping at the exit door, entering all seven stages. I want to leap out, even if it kills me. I hope that it kills me. It would bring me closer to the time that we were alive together; where we both existed. Where I had you.
I see you fade into unfamiliarity, and I am too afraid to turn ahead. Maybe this path is circular; maybe I will see you again if I wait long enough.
I beg for you, but I realize you don’t care to hear me.
I grieve you while we stand side by side.
I mourn you, and am told to be grateful.
After all, here you are, still alive, even if the part of you that was for me has already died.
my body is not my own
before I could know what my body was,
or the things that my body could do,
it belonged to my mother,
and hers to me;
through her own body, mine learned and grew.
my body is not my own,
before I could love my body for its shape and it’s strength,
or feel safe calling it my home,
it belonged to the boys
who told me my body
was nothing to love or to show.
my body is not my own,
before I could heal and nurture my body,
or relearn the beauty it held,
it belonged to the boys
who now told me my body
was capable of casting spells.
my body is not my own,
before I knew how to fuel my body towards wellness,
or treat it with care,
it belonged to the ailments that
haunted my mind;
the sadness, the anxious despair.
my body is not my own,
for once I knew how to carry my body,
and allow it to carry me
i willingly gave up control
of my body to carry
life within me.
my body is not my own,
and it’s a rather good thing that I know
that this body is only my armour
and that nobody can own my soul.
do not keep me
do not keep my body while my soul moves on
when my words have left me
when my thoughts are gone
do not keep me
if I cannot make you feel my love
if my limbs are stiff and aching
or I cannot feel your hug
do not keep me
as my memory declines
as I lose the little parts of me that make me feel alive
do not mourn me
while you watch my body die
know that I will find my way back to you in our next lives
so do not keep me
not if it’s just so you can
not when I’m less myself
and not even if my loss was not planned
let me linger
just long enough to say goodbye
and then let me leave my body
towards that spirit in the sky
It hurts to watch someone fall out of love with you. It aches through your entire being, like ripples of electric current. It creates a whirlpool in your thoughts where your memories, dreams, and all of the possibilities slowly circle and drown... where your sense of self is pulled under the surface and you feel like you have lost a piece of yourself. You ask, "why", and "what about me". Yes, it hurts to watch someone fall out of love with you.
But beyond the pain of watching someone fall out of love with you... is watching yourself fall out of love with someone who hurts you.
You both have control, and are being carried against your will and want.
You have that electrifying ache, and a numbing emptiness.
You are present and wishful, and you are already a ghost.
You are both your light and your shadow.
You are within yourself, and you are out-of-body.
It is a different type of all-consuming, all-ending hurt to give chance after chance, hear promise after promise, and beg over again, "please, just love me and love me well" only to realize that everything you gave of yourself was in vain. To watch yourself raise your emotional white flag and realize that you're gone, in spite of all you've done to stay. You still ask, "why" and even "why not"; you still ask "what about me", but it's inward-facing as you beg the universe to allow you to heal past this and recover the ability to love once more or give yourself again.
No, there is just no pain like falling out of love when you love someone still.
Aggie was awaken by the jarring sound of her “mourning” alarm — set to wake her at the exact time, on the exact day of the worst of her days this far. The day Cam’s soul outlived his body and he journeyed to his next purpose. At least, that’s what she told herself.
”He’s out there,“ Aggie reassured herself. “He’s living his next and his best life.”
But there was something about him that lingered in a way that was… tangible. She swore some days that she saw Cam, from the corner of her eye, resting against a wall with his arms gently crossed and his head titled in admiration as he watched her.
So her insistence that his soul had traveled onward was purposeful both in comforting her grief, and dismissing the haunting feeling that he was not quite gone just yet.
The dismissal was dwindling in effectiveness as of late. And today, as she woke to her alarm at 5:45 AM, she was met with a sixth sense telling her, “you have yet to see”, and that she would soon be unable to ignore the shadows in the corners of her vision for better or worse.
As Aggie lay in bed adjusting to consciousness, she could already sense Cam’s warmth next to her. Sometimes, she nestled into it; shifting back towards his side of the bed they once shared in the house that once was their home. Sometimes, the shiver up her spine brought comfort rather than unnerving. Today, she met his warmth with a sharp inhale as it triggered the memory of her waking on the day of Cam’s passing on.
“Come back to me,” she begged the presence. “Come back to me fully or not at all.”
Her cheeks were overcome with wetness, which ran down her face and on to her pillow atop a familiar stain from sorrows past. She pictured Cam in her mind; his wild brown hair, his dappled cheeks, and his horrible morning breath. She envisioned his warm, rough hands on her shoulders and turning around to be met by forest eyes and furrowed brows.
”I mean it,” she argued into the nothingness. “You come back or you leave me alone. I can’t believe that you’ve done this to me. You can’t leave me in limbo this way. This is… this is the worst thing you’ve ever done to me.”
Aggie felt a persistent presence, and then a movement like a gentle ocean current suddenly pass over her. She quickly turned over in bed and realized that she was alone; no Cam, and no presence. She was almost annoyed. Slowly, she made her way from the bed to the ensuite and washed away last nights makeup, then towards the windows to air the room as she showered — Cam was meant to repair the shower fan — then lazily trodded down the hall towards the kitchen.
Aggie stopped dead in her tracks.
”I’ve made you a coffee,” a familiar frame in the doorway stated. “Come.”
Cam stood, arms crossed, leant against the wall of the doorway to the kitchen; a coffee in hand. This was not a peripheral vision. Aggie was stunned and stone-footed. It seemed like an eternity passed, while her husbands‘ figure smiled on and waited patiently.
”How?” She breathed. “How have you come back to me?”
”Darling,” Cam replied with a flat, but soothing, tone. “Are you certain you haven’t come to me?”
Before Aggie could lose herself in thought and memory, Cam suddenly approached her and asked, “besides… would it matter?”
”No,” Aggie replied. “No, I suppose it doesn’t.”
”Then let’s have coffee; today and every day until the end of our time.”
your heart stopped answering mine when it calls
yet, somehow, they still beat in sync.
i long for the days when your kiss felt like kissing,
and i could for long feel it lingering still.
i ache for the days when your touch felt blistering,
and of you i could not get my fill.
we exist parallel to one another,
mirror the reflection of a rosy-tinted past,
at times i hear my head say, “why bother“,
but my soul screams, “without him, we won’t last”.
the thing about baggage is that it travels very well,
and along its many journeys, it writes stories it can tell.
as carefully as you pack it up
it often becomes messy;
things do not remain where they were when you got them ready.
the thing about baggage is that the cleaner that you keep it
the lesser that it's traveled and the longer that you need it.
as time and distance weather it,
your baggage becomes lighter;
you learn to travel with your needs and zip it up much tighter.
you will notice that with your baggage that the farther that it's carried,
the kind of things you keep inside will begin to vary,
maybe it can contain less,
maybe it grows stronger,
maybe it has lost a wheel and can't be pulled much longer.
maybe you're late to your flight when your baggage just bursts open,
and all the things you worked so hard to pack away are showing,
you quickly pick your baggage up,
you feel like you're embarrassed,
but you're not the only person in the airport to unintentionally bare it.
the other thing about our baggage is that it's not ours on our own,
we let our loved ones take the handle when we are heading home,
and strangers sometimes take our baggage
to places where we can't see it
we may not know the reason or know how they're going to treat it.
at times we lose a piece of what we kept inside our suitcase,
sometimes that item being lost forces you into a new place,
unprepared and overwhelmed
in foreign territories,
take that weathered, messy baggage and keep writing its stories.