when i am holding nothing & holding everything

"I promise you, I will press your memory
into every version of me, I will carry your breath,
with my own now, I will plant you in my garden,
I will hold you in the clutching tightness of my hands
when I am holding nothing, and when I am holding everything."

december, 2025

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Please don't feel obligated to comment on this thread, you are welcome to if you would like to, but it is also truly okay if you don't. As the theme is sensitive I also realize this thread may not be comfortable for all to read, so no hard feelings whatsoever if my poetry is not your cup of tea this year. Wishing all who grieve gentleness, light, and warmth.

I wish this was not my thread or my season of life at the moment, but here's where we are. This year for NaPo as the content of this thread suggests, I am just trying to stay afloat, so that is the goal. I might not write anything, or maybe I will, I think I will also try to write another thread about gardening when things seem a little lighter, but here's a thread for the heavier things.

[contents]

(pre-napo)
0 pressed flowers & love (december)
0 not yet (january)
0 well (march)
0 far (march)

(napo)
1 infinitely closer (04.01.26)
2 before the sun fell out of the sky (04.01.26)
3 (unclosed (4.02.26)
4 mutiny (4.03.26)
5 palm sunday (4.04.26)
6 maundy thursday (4.04.26)
7 good friday (4.04.26)
8 easter - Acclamation (4.05.26)
9 easter - Obligation (4.05.26)
10 easter - Resurrection (4.05.26)
11 i am doing 'okay' (4.06.26)
12 kintsugi (4.06.26)
13 the light i strain my heart to see (4.07.26)
14 catch my breath to drown again (4.08.26)
15 where mothers come from (4.09.26)
16 maybe i am the starving locust (4.10.26)
17 treading bitter water (4.11.26)
18 debt (4.12.26)
19 mis - (4.18.26)
20 this strange wound (4.18.26)
21 'congratulations' (4.19.26)
22 'good holiday' (4.20.26)
23 'panic' (4.20.26)
24 'okay' (4.20.26)
25 "What is this that you have done?" (4.21.26)
26 “Where are you?” (4.21.26)
27 we're all dying devastatingly (quiet) (4.22.26)
28 sorry if it bothers you (4.22.26)
29 if i could undo it all (4.25.26)
30 nothing, but absolutely everything (4.27.26)

31 if grief has gifts, i am keeping them all because the earth is hollow (4.29.26)
32 letters to you (4.29.26)
33 the only hope i hold more tightly (4.30.26)

not yet (january)

I keep trying to think of a poetic way to say that I'm grieving,

as if I could wedge this ugly broken feeling between a withered flower stem
and a bird taking flight and make the statement less awkward,

as if the rain could refuse to drown us if it wanted,
as if this valley would fold over quilt-like and cover me,

as if the river would drag us home and turn the stove on,
as if the stars could bring us a cup of tea and pat away our tears,

as if we could make believe that the night echoed into lullaby
and will the sun into staying with us until we fell asleep

as if I could shield you from the sharp way all my thoughts spin
so you could bear to stand and hear me for a while,

as if we could pretend that every line is followed by another
and that this silence has just been an inconvenient line-break

before another breath. But there's nothing left,
And the world won't stop spinning. And I know this is not poetry.

well (march)

grief is a well
i think i am meant to drink from
to rinse out the taste of bitterness,
but sometimes i don't know
when to stop,
so i take every drop
and drink and drink until
i drown and drown -

but all of the bitterness
is still here -
it's always near-
because it's gotten in
my bones.

[and i think i have
become the well,
and i am overpouring,
and i am overwhelmed,
and this is an ocean
i can't swallow up]

[but if this is all i get to keep from loss,
then i will take every drop.]

infinitely too far

i hold you like i chase the fog-crested mornings in spring,
i'm never fast enough to catch where you've went,
only-reaching, only-straining
and then right before i think i see the light of the sun coming through,
everything is dark again.

but never really far at all

i see you in the way the dew hangs onto the morning grass,
like it was touched by someone gentle walking by,
i hear you in the hush of the wind, and the rain, and the bird call,
i look for you in every edge of my voice and gingerly kept memory,
and let the heavy parts hold their weight long enough to know
you were real, and you are loved.

1.

infinitely closer [04.01.26]

i hold you like i hold his hand
clutched tight like the string of a kite trying to disappear into the air
and i am unashamedly desperate that i won't let go,
i will grip your memory fierce even if it means i start to float away,
fade into the sunrise, become a cloud or a bird-song,
even if it means i won't return, even if it means
my hands are full forever with all these sharp edges -
wedged like jagged glass into skin, and bone, and heart -
i hold you like i know you're still latched to my veins
and i'm afraid to let these threads stretch any further.

Spoiler

@lalalucky - thank you for the incredibly sweet comment and the well wishes too. So very appreciated - hope you have a great NaPo this month too.

2.

and what was it we were talking about (before the sun fell out of the sky) [04.01.26]

What were we talking about,
before the sun fell out of the sky? I
keep trying to remember – like
it’s on the tip of my tongue, and maybe
if I could recall the shade of your eyes
when you laugh with your whole body,
or the feeling of grasping your hand
out of absentminded habit, instead
of just holding you for fear of drowning,
or if I could pick-up our last unbroken
conversation about dropping temperatures,
or the sound of rain, or the little-hopes,
that remind you it’s okay to dream,
maybe if I could recall what we were
talking about I could pick up the pieces
of this sky off the ground, and find
enough room to try to sleep again.

Spoiler

@Hkumar thank you so much for stopping by and reading and for your comments as well! <3

3.

[unclosed - [04.02.26]

[People act like there is some grace to having “closure,” but i’m not sure it works that way with grief. i do not want closure, i want my grief to be vastly un-closed, un-hinged at the frame, broken-sky and corn-field and river-bed and sparrow-nest all knowing my pain un-stopped, un-inhibited, un-deniably, i want my grief hanging out awkwardly and out of place at the seams, waving, frayed and un-ashamed, i want you to know when you see me that i am not the same, and i never will be again – i want to be un-careful as i scream, and un-furled as i cry, i want to be un-afraid as pools of grief become ocean and drown everything around me – i want this book i am in to be radically un-edited and un-ended, pouring into eternity, even after-me, i want to remember-you, i want to hold-you, i want to let-you fill each edge and space and part of me; in the tone of my voice and the hit of my step, i promise you, i will not close you in a box, or a moment, or a memory, but will un-close myself until my heart is inside-out and turned broken-side-showing, until my voice is scratched and mute and bittter-breath scraping lungs, until this is all i am, and all there is, until there is no chance anyone would ever suggest closing this broken wound-up, because then where would light break through and where would i be, this broken part is a window, not a door, and it will not be closed by me -

Spoiler

Thank you both for reading and also for your sweet comments -

@soundofmind - Thank you sound - and very much same to you as well! <3

@Que - Thank you friend! I'm glad the pacing came across that way too. <3

4.

mutiny [04.03.26]

loss born within your own body is a horrific type of undoing,
the infinite possibilities of new-life, built from your-life, becoming our-life,
slams to a halt like spring’s first robin, wings-stretched tipping towards the sky
crashing hard against a wall of brick. her own strength
has flung her into death. and the sky won’t help her here.

the nearby sparrows will make their nests out of her fallen feathers
and will call it self-preservation instead of looting-a-grave,
they are unashamed as they pluck from her brooding chest and crown –
and when she starts to stir, they tell her ‘to just try again,’ ignoring
every hollow broken bone she must drag along the ground now.

we will politely nod as we carry our wounds inside-out,
and thank them for their advice, while silently losing faith
in the rise and fall of wings and lungs, and the push and pull of gravity -
as we pluck every feather clean from skin – to avoid all reminders of what's lost,
as we learn to stop singing, stop flying, stop looking at the sky altogether,
as we curse the hollow place inside ourselves where we used to live,

but on the outside – yes, everything is fine.

Spoiler

@Meshugenah <333 Thank you

content warning - these 3 poems more specifically pertain to death. passing mention of blood.



5.

palm sunday [04.04.26]


6.

maundy thursday [04.04.26]


7.

good friday [04.04.26]