Somebody You Loved
I found fragments of the poem I wrote for you,
A curl of paper folded up in the cupboard
Next to a half-washed wine glass with a chip on the rim.
It was only part of a line, a little rhyme —
I’m not sure what to do with it now.
There’s a balled-up CVS receipt under my bed,
A few words gone, unsaid covered in coffee stains
With a generous amount of white space pauses in between,
I doubt you’d like to wait it out while I read them.
In the back of Byron’s memoirs, I left a scribbled note,
A couplet that fought its way out of my head. But
The lead had snapped under pressure halfway through,
Now all I have left is a broken line about you.
And then there was the water bill I’d repurposed,
I swear it smeared the words off the surface as I wrote them.
Or maybe the idea that demanded to exist was reminded
It had second thoughts on my writing, too.
I think I lost a few words over time —
So now there are gaps in the storyline, disconnected
Like a crumb trail with no real end, and
The flow plateaus to a roil. A poem missing pieces
Probably isn’t a poem at all. But the feeling is there,
The way the presence of an absence fills you up.
Your soul is scooped out, a shell left behind
Only to find those missing parts etched
inside your rib cage, holding it together
For when your hands let go.
Maybe you don’t have all the pieces,
But none of us do. As for me, I’m missing two
Lines, one about love and one about time.
I’m convinced they’re inside, binding me
Together anew, bone glue at my seams.
It’s there, isn’t it? Can’t you feel it?
Thanks for reading! Your time is a gift to me. I ❤ reading your responses!
