seeing the young love start to branch out, the looks, the first electric holding of hands
seeing it as I walk across campus makes me want to cry out, tear at my hair and screech like a dying animal, tear at the ground as if I had hooves, foam at the mouth as if this grief inside is a rabies that can’t be contained
but i swallow hard, the knot in my throat, the hole in my heart feels like bile, and it leaks out in small tears, and I gasp and hope I don’t sob and with the sleeve of my jacket I blot the tears and walk to the truck and drive to pick up my son and go thru the motions of life
somedays I want to hold onto this ring as if it’s Chris himself, as if as long as I keep it then he’s not all the way dead and maybe if I eat it, if i scratch and gnash it with my teeth and swallow it whole i can make it stay inside me, forever ever ever
then it’s a weight that pulls me under and I want to throw it into the universe, as far from me as possible, as if its release would free me from your death, from the blackness, the darkness, the endless nothing
(it was here, and there was more waiting to get poured out but the boy needs his socks put on, his bedtime story read, and the test needs studying for, the life keeps demanding to be lead)
ad astra per aspera 