7.7.25

i didn’t know your clothes smelled like you until it washed out
and then i grieve all over again
pieces of you left behind, i bring four suitcases to fit my mind
and i crumble at a picture of your face i’d forgotten
tucked into the pages

it’s easy to feel small when you’re drowning
your shirts fit me wide but no one else had my shoulders
someone made me longer, tall enough to be you in your hats
but too small for your shoes
and too scared to fill them

third sons and third daughters both look like their fathers
but you were a sun and i was like water
i think of you when i see my own eyes, and it’s the gift you left behind
a part of your legacy left in my smile
for us to remember you by

we liked the same blues in the same repeat shades
and my skin burns like your skin, the sun’s angry haze
is my burden to carry now that you are gone
i’ll never smell like you
but enough you lives on
in me

i pick my skin under flourescent lights like a grounding ritual
competing with prayer for the longest standing habit
ruminations become fog when nails meet skin
and the pinch hasn’t registered for fifteen years
and now it makes no difference

pock marks and discoloration are moments lost
burning time i’ll never have, just to feel something and less of another
i didn’t think about carrying it with me, or what it would be like
to lose, and lose, and lose, and lose
and it makes no difference

can the distance bring back the dead? i already know the answer
i can peel every layer away, and i’ll still bear the weight forever
coping is man’s God-given right for existing, but this is a cyclone
digging, deeper, sucked into emptiness when i’m alone
if i don’t stop moving it makes no difference

i have to dare to hope again
i’ve been to the bottom of myself and there’s no life there, no solace
self discovery results in self abandonment, and maybe there’s progress
but that void holds no more vision than the cells under my nails
what’s the difference?

i have to hope again
return to prayer as the only eternal habit that i can bring with me beyond the soil of my soul 
its the only one that feeds me, that pries my hands away from my arms
and soothes me back to innocence
only that can make a difference