and i may have lost that

for a moment,

but after you left,

i still knew

i was beautiful.

nothing you did

could have ever

changed that.

i haven’t thought of you in days

it’s been three weeks

and it’s the longest i’ve gone in nearly four years

without writing a poem about you.

well,

it’s more like it’s been three weeks

and it’s the longest i’ve gone in nearly four years

without needing to write a poem about you.

because even when i couldn’t find the words

the urge was always still there,

bubbling up in me like a soda can

that’s been knocked around

one too many times.

i guess

this poem kind of

cancels out what i just said but,

i mean,

isn’t a poem about how i don’t feel the need

to write poems about you

better than yet another poem in which

i repeat the same battered lines

and open the same old wounds

because i can’t figure out how

to forgive you or let it go or whatever,

but,

maybe this is forgiving you?

maybe this is letting it go?

the fact that i have to force you

to come to mind rather than

everything else having to fight

their way into your spotlight?

i don’t know if this will last

but i like this feeling of peace

and it’s the first time in a long time

that i don’t give a shit what you’re up to

and it’s the weirdest damn thing

in the world.

it feels so strange in my hands.

i think i’m starting to forgive you.

maybe it’s the new decade or maybe it’s just time

but i think it’s finally happening.

maybe tomorrow i’ll wake up and feel the same

as i have for so long but i think right now,

if only for a moment, i mean it when i say

i’m good. i’m fine.

and i hope you’re the same.

for a while, the only thing i felt

when it came to you was sadness.

then slowly, over some months,

that morphed into anger.

eventually, it was both:

sadness and anger,

grief and rage,

agony and fury.

it stayed that way for a long time.

and now, finally,

the only thing i feel

when it comes to you

is nothing.

i think many would call it

peace.

ghosts

sometimes, people haunt you, and the best thing you can do is let

them. when you wake up in the morning and their ghost greets

you by the coffee maker, where the real them always used to

stand, give them a smile, offer them a cup. it’s okay to find peace

in the presence of a phantom. somebody who used to be such a

solid figure in your life is so faded you could pass a hand through

them. it’s okay to grieve that fact. it’s okay to seek out the places

and the things that remind you of them—bookstores, cafés, park