value.

for m.f.

today
you told me
that you can always see
the shades of grey, somewhere
between the black and the white.

but not this time, you said
and somehow that was comforting, a feeling
that cut through the numbness
in my fingers and heart and head
and i wished it would last forever.

i walked away
in my housecoat personality, wanting
to stay longer on that sidewalk,
thinking how said you could go a long time
without acknowledging
that anyone even exists.

and in that moment,
i envied you.

weathering the storm.

at the tail-end of summer
the air feels wet
with rain that may
or may not come, and i am sitting
in a chair, beside the window
the old rocker
that was my father's,
waiting.

my grandmother always tells me
she can smell the rain
i can feel it in the air, she says
the same way she feels it
in her bones
and i know she thinks of him
my grandfather
especially when it rains
that a part of him falls in every drop.

the air now sharp and crisp
like the white wine
on the end of my tongue. i wonder
how it is that i ended up in this
this place, not palace, thinking
bound to his chair but
not thinking of him.

and i write to you
hoping that it will help
that the kamikaze clouds
will roll back into themselves
that i can pull myself from this chair
that it will not rock again
that it will not rain.