do you really think

i know what forgiveness means?

i am a poet.

the forgiveness begins

when the poems end.

(and they haven’t ended yet.)

you were the ink i wrote every word with once.

now the pen is drying up.

and i don’t know what to do.

i know if it were up to you,

that this would’ve been over

a long time ago,

but it’s not.

you don’t get to tell me

how to heal.

this is the one part of us

that i get to decide.

who will be the next to break my heart like you did?

what comes after something like this?

surely i have learned enough to know better.

surely i will be able to protect myself.

but i thought the same when i met you,

and yet, look around.

i am not scared of finally being free of you.

i am scared of what comes after i get used

to how that feels.

a quarantine poem

i feel a poem bubbling up in me

and i know

it’s going to sound just like

the rest

but i write it

anyway.

i think

there is an alternate universe

out there

where people are free

and we have our lives

and everything is perfect

just like it was before

march

and

i think

maybe in that

alternate universe,

i love you,

and not in the sad, injured way

i know that love to be now,

but in some kind of way

where you did not make me

into someone who keeps

skeletons at her kitchen table.

maybe in that universe

you have been gone

for a long time

but i do not converse

with a ghost in your place.

and then i think

maybe in that

alternate universe,

i don’t love you at all,

for i never met you.

maybe in that world

i am not a poet

although i would like to be,

maybe in that world

i do not know how lucky

i am.

or perhaps,

i love you like i used to,

maybe in that universe

you are the one who is different

and i am the same

as i have always been.

maybe that universe holds

the life we used to dream about.

i couldn’t tell you

what i’d rather have:

a life like this,

a life with you,

or a life without you at all.

i just know this:

i don’t know what life

used to feel like before you.

i only know the after.

and perhaps that is

the only thing anybody knows

now.

i didn’t think it would take

this long.

that’s part of the reason

seeing the ending in sight

is just as terrifying as it is thrilling—

you have been part of me

for years.

in some ways,

i don’t know who i am

if i am not struggling to

move past you.

a lesson on handling loss