Yes, this grief is sweet

But is no recomcompense  for your absence. 

It has taught me many things, this grief, like

How to manage bills, and

How to get through milestones such as

Birthdays, and

New Years Eve

(Light candles, drink too much wine, eat pizza and pretend it's just another day) 

And yes, as Rumi implied,

Missing you is sweet, 

But how saccharine, I think, 

I'd so much rather have you next to me 

Watching the Twilight Zone in bed, 

Eating "cruds" and crackers and brie 

Assuring one another of how

Unimportant this day really is

Because we have each other

And what could matter more? 

Except that now,  of course, 

We don't.

 We walk hand in hand round the grey reservoir, 

Or on rain-soaked cobblestone, slippery sidewalks, 

'Neath soggy, cold and golden trees

Note the patterns in the trodden on leaves

Dodging loud tourists who block our way

Staring lost at their phones, looking for the Met

This is our time, our city, 

Our space

My melancholy 

And me.

 I am, I suspect, in danger of falling in love with my grief, so predisposed have I always been to melancholia.  

It's the most suitable substitute for my lost Love I've yet to find: always present, safe, and warm, a generous partner to hold against me in a cold, expansive bed. 

Were I to buy into the paradigm that we somehow choose our fates, I might even believe that I went into this relationship fully, so that I might fully experience losing Carrie, and the subsequent violent dissolution of my entire universe. But I'm not a fatalist. I did not choose this.

And yet, I've little choice but to embrace it with my whole being, which includes of course, finding the immeasurable beauty within it.  

This vocation is my love letter to Carrie: even if it's a letter she'll never read.

Into a winter's afternoon sleep

Eyes shut tight against the light  

Images of fallen, yellow gingko leaves 

Coating the wet sidewalks and streets

Their curled edges: sparkling shards 

Of facetted amber in the 

Slanted golden light.

 I realised something last night whilst on a particularly lovely date; we were talking about what it was we were each looking for, and at first, I'd said something along the lines that I was hoping to find a friend with whom I could share physical intimacy,  but then, as I thought about it more, I realised, I'm not as interested in hookups as I'd previously thought.  I really do want some kind of actual intimacy that's expressed through many ways, including (but not only)  sex, rather than simply sex itself, for its own sake.  This may not sound revolutionary, but for me, it was revelatory.

I don't miss coming, nor even making someone else come; I  miss the excitement that comes from the slow peeling away of the layers of artifice we all cultivate in order to survive this world, both from myself and from somebody else, allowing our true selves to meet, and the warmth, the friction and melding that occurs as a natural result, when sex is simply the closest tool at our disposal for bringing our bodies along where our souls have already gone.

I've been desperately hurrying through the grief of losing my partner,  because part of me is convinced I will never again find the easy kind of intimacy the two of us shared, and it's true, I may not; this is a terrifying thought. I've been subsuming my grief in the process of trying to slake my physical hungers, but with this realisation came the understanding that those hungers aren't only,  nor even mainly physical.  I cannot run from this pain, and, I no longer wish to.  Instead, I want to grow toward something. 

This process has been, and will continue to be painful, but it has also been, and I hope, will continue to be beautiful.  This is metamorphosis: the dissolution of a previous self in order to emerge anew, and I'm here for it. I'm here for all of it.

Oh, to feel, 

Indeed, to BE unhurried again

To have the time 

To take time,  to

Shrug off this weighty mantle of desperation;

This, alas, is the privilege of the young, where 

We who've seen 

Fifty (plus) years

Who've lost that which we were

Once so able to take for granted, must

Pressed by time and the march of Entropy,

fev'rishly rush to secure our nests, to

Bolster our stores

All the while, too aware of the approaching winter.

 Theoretical me I to theoretical me II : 

"Honestly, I don't know whether I'm coming or going these days. "

Theoretical me II to theoretical me I :

"That must put quite the damper on your dating life."

Even the winter buds hide their eyes in anaesthetic sleep on days like this, 

But I,

Foolhardy bear, hungry for beauty, 

(or distraction,)

Venture out from my warm and well appointed cave

Not nearly layered sufficiently, 

My bones split and splinter in the cold. 

It's 3:08 AM, and the cold emptiness that woke me is creeping up my inner walls, filling me full with Nothing.

 Today, when I broke down, quietly sobbing in Max Brenner, the reason I was so upset that the tourists at the next table were staring at, and whispering about me, is because it was a direct contravention of New York protocol.  

Ours is a crowded city.  I can't count the number of times I've been in a Duane Reade or Gristede's and some young woman in Uggs (always in Uggs,) was on her phone crying, or fighting with someone, and nobody nearby so much as batted an eye.  Why? Because in this crowded city, we understand the need for space, invisibility.  We respect one another by not making one another self conscious, by not bothering one another.  This isn't because we don't care; on the contrary,  it's because we understand.  It's because we share so much: space, culture, fate, needs... 

When tourists come into our communal spaces and contravene our cultural standards it's intrusive.  They are the proverbial "ugly Americans", regardless of where they're from.  

So I beg you non New Yorkers, come enjoy our beautiful city,  but learn something about our customs and culture, and please don't treat us locals as spectacles.  We're just living our lives, and sometimes,  that means we are publicly messy.  

Just ignore us.  (Except when we're trying to pass you on the sidewalk; then, for God's sake, please, get the hell out of our way. )

This wound that you left in my life

will never heal;

It's edges, 

Crusted, dried and inflamed still itch

And burn

And ooze all over everything:

Our bed, 

The yellow chair

Even my favourite wrap dress is ruined

I will never 

Wear it  

Again.

Note: the following is not a suicide note.  It's simply a reflection of my daily struggle, of the omnipresence of ideation I've lived with since I was 8, and particularly since my love passed away.  

I'm a poet; I often write for the purpose of catharsis, as a way to exorcise certain tendencies.

I'm not a danger to myself, and in fact, I'm committed to doing everything in my power to stay in this beautiful and terrible world.  

...

Today marks one month without my Carrie by my side, 

And as I sit here in my deep, soft velvet reading chair, 

My breakfast of a 

Quartered apple 

And a bowl of coffee on the Little Yellow Table before me, 

Showered, and perfumed, 

Dressed, and shod,

I can't help thinking that today, 

This moment

This spot 

Might be the perfect

Day

Moment, and 

Spot 

To crack open my father's bottle of Oxy,

And down them with my morning coffee.