Melancholia

I haven’t had the time to reflect
on your life and the possibility
of your death,
and the aftermath of it all
were you to go.


It hits me at times,
but not as it used to,
in the middle of the night
as I dream scenarios where you are not
anymore.

And it burns me,
the way salt burns against skin,
suffocates me
the way the weight on my back
and the knot inside my lungs
tighten the noose.

I must remain
strong,
but I falter in the uncertainty
and dissociate into voices
whispering different futures,
fragmented realities yet to find
the real path.


I hear your voice
from time to time,
whispering that I must remain
sane, for the sake of it all.
The rest of us are waiting



In absentia
In the absence of where to displace
the blame that waits patiently by my door
I turn to the heavens
and scald my tongue in blasphemy,
cursing the god I grew up with
and believed in
for letting it all happen.


In the absence of where to displace
the guilt, I swallow it deep
down with yellow pills
and hope it dissolves into me
and never resurfaces.


In the absence of faith,
I am left with whispering sad nothings
to those who left before us
optimistic that a fragment of them remains
and hoping against all hope
that they hold the power to aid.
In the absence of you,
I spiral in no particular direction;
jumping from sorrow to anger,
rage to denial,
rejection to negotiating
a life for a life,
mine for yours.


But never acceptance.


In the absence of acceptance,
I am trapped in a coil,
ouroboros.



Augury
Everything is a sign,
if you are looking for an answer


I keep track of them
wherever I find them:
the scattered rocks on the floor,
an overcast sky,
the arrangement of the stars,
the pace of my heart,
the swaying fragrance of flowers
and the smell of decay in my nostrils,
the content of dreams.


I look for signs
for the lack of better ways
to predict this uncertainty
and to leave what comes
at the invisible hands
of fate.


Ouroboros
I believe in a cycle
of birth and decay,
of everlasting transmutations
where what made us who we were
is etched onto dying stars,
and the stories we wrote carried
with the fainting breath of what we left behind;


we feed the soil we walked upon,
and fill up the lungs of all breathing things;
we swim in the depths of the never ending expanse
preparing for the next shape,
transformed by what touched us
and what hurt us,
what we graced and soiled


a give and take of the things
that we were
and what we were meant to be.


And so we live
again
and decay
again
and again.