I've been thinking a lot about how poets say grief is a beast,

or a looming shadow,

or some cold bottomless lake,

but for some reason

It's different with you.

It's more common than that.

There was no darkness when you left

the sun kept it's pulse,

yesterday came and went

the only difference is the way we carried ourselves

after losing the weight of one another.

What im trying to say is that our disaster was natural.

I'm not running from monsters or reaching for the surface,

rather i'm living with a new noticeable layer of deprivation

that i think somehow is residue

Losing you was destructive, sure

but it was also organic

like the way landslides carve wounds into the faces of mountains,

how wind uproots evergreens,

and even how dust settles after a desert storm.

In the day dream I keep returning to

we are living on different sides of the country

I am in a studio surrounded by my stories

and you are filling in your own blanks

Life has grown over our changed terrain

We've recovered.