The Quiet Following

The Weight of Silent Stars

The night you were stolen, the stars fell.

They fold inward like charred wings, not downward.

The air forgot your name as the heavens grew dimmer.

I didn't cry back then.

The body learns to hold its breath and grieve silently

until the pain turns into words and bones,

can still hear the sound of loss.

Your voice echoes in the corners,

a sigh inside the wood of old doors,

a hum between illumination and shadow.

It is not fading.

All it does is droop its head and wait for me to hear.

Without warmth, the sun rose.

Like a lost pilgrim, it journeyed through,

your absence in quest of the land it once called home.

Every shadow seemed crooked,

too long, too thin,

as though the world itself was attempting not to weep.

I said your name under my breath.

The dirt might recall you too soon,

and suck me under if I say it now.

For this type of loss, there are no prayers.

There are no temples for the unending anguish.

Only the way I still grasp for you in nightmares that won't go away,

and the sound of your laughter reverberating into the silence.

The Earth's Mouth

I didn't intend to give you a call back.

However, I've used the word "grief" far too often,

And it's an older language than "mercy."

With a gentle hum beneath the soil,

and the sound of worms altering what was once holy,

the earth reponds in its own language.

I can hear you breathing quietly and learning to talk in dust,

somewhere between the roots.

As I pass the garden, your name clings to my ankles,

like a vine that has climbed out of the earth.

I made a cut.

It grows once more.

It murmurs.

"Where the darkness started, you abandoned me."

Your voice has taught the candles ot flicker in time with it.

It seems as though your ghost is being exahled,

from my house itself,

as the air becomes thinner.

Your lullaby hums from every window.

You appear half-full in every reflection.

I now get less sleep.

When I close my eyes, the darkness bends.

I occasionally wake up with dirt under my fingernails

lose track of my whereabouts.

Grief, they say, fades.

They tell lies.

All it does is alter shape.

It changes to hands, then shadow, then voice,

finally, tonight, the dark speaks back as I call your name.

"I'm closer now than I was before."

The Devouring

The distinction between decay and love is blurred.

Now I am aware of that.

I dug until your name turned into an open wound,

that would not heal,

until the soil bled light,

and until the worms bled from my fingertips.

First, the scent,

sweet, metallic, as sensitive as recollection.

Then there was the sound:

an unidentified heartbeat, a moist sign beneath the roots.

You waited.

Your eyes are filled with stars and dirt,

your skin is the color of an old moon.

Your voice dragged against itself when you spoke,

as if each word were made with knifes.,

"I was hungry because of you"

I mentioned your name.

You had too many teeth in your smile.

The body expanded when I held you.

Here, there is only warmth and the reality that flesh remembers.

I was split like fruit by my sadness.

Gently at first, you crawled inside and pressed your icy hands against my ribs

an attempt to find the heartbeat you had left behind.

You are now reside where I stop.

Through the same ripped mouth,

we both breathe.

With us, the house's walls are slippery,

with each heartbeat synchronized with yours and dripping down the stucco.

Where I stop is a mystery to me.

I can't tell if I'm still alive.

I'm not sure whether the voice that whispers "love" is your or the part of me that pleaded for an answer for too long.

You whisper in my chest,

"There is no death."

"Just the staying."

And you have my faith.

Since I can still sense your movements.

Because the ground hums back like a lover's throat,

when I put my palms to the floor.

Because I am now overwhelmed by you.

There is no more space for air.

The Returning Feast

I drank from the chalice that was the night.

Warm, thick, and as patient as a prayer,

your stillness waited there.

I promised to bring you home,

I told the moon.

It listened, lowering its pale throat.

Forgiveness and iron flavored the air.

I collected all that was left of you,

every fragment that had previously responded to my touch

and placed them on the table in a communion manner.

I created a ceremony because love demands it.

Smoke whispered from the inward-bending candles.

I recalled how you used to breathe my name,

felt the most tenderness of devotion,

touched what the ground had preserved of you.

Every commitment I made was echoed back.

Each kiss became more intense.

You turned into the unstoppable wine.

As a song too low to hum, you now lay within me.

I don't move, yet the world does.

Only the silence between our heartbeats,

the unwavering warmth remain.

And I respond in your voice,

soft, lovely, the sound of love at last complete,

when dawn opens its mouth to speak

The Remaining

When I go to sleep, I hear you moving.

You hum sweetly and slowly through my teeth.

Once, I adored you; now, I keep you.