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as is.
it’s the strangest thing,
how i find myself loving you.
i haven’t told you – yet
but the words stay on the tip of my tongue
waiting.
dangerously close,
to spilling over and out
and through all the spaces
you’ve begun to fill.
i have no expectations,
i don’t need you to love me back,
i don’t need you to say the words,
to reciprocate –
of course, it’s beautiful if you do,
but i am strangely satisfied,
with loving you,
as is.
perhaps that is how love is meant to be.
i love you.
simply.
i’m still learning you,
but i love you all the same.
ghostlings.
It’s not the pain that kills you,
it’s the fucking nostalgia.
It lurks in bookstores
and Christmas trees
and all the spaces you thought
that you already cleaned.
little truth.
You know,
it’s fucking terrifying –
this thing with you.
You said,
“what are you sorry for”
and
“it’s not your fault”
and you have no
fucking
clue
how
much
that
filled
my
soul.
shells.
i am a social worker.
i work in a shelter.
i have learned the language
of boundaries and tough love
but what they do not teach you
is how to pack up the left behinds.
the clothes and the shoes and the papers,
shells of people who have come and left.
the dress that someone wore when
they finally found a job.
the broken sneakers,
shoved in a corner
that have seen more feet
than a podiatrist on wednesday.
the packets of ibuprofen,
that never take away the ache
of children in dss custody.
hair ties, tank tops, journals,
underwear, calendars, ripped pages
with dates and phone numbers
scattered, here and there,
smudged with fingerprints
made from dirt and hope and coffee.
garbage bags and name tags,
shoved into a hallway
that goes nowhere.
simmer
i almost love you.
it’s sitting there,
simmering beneath the surface,
waiting for the right moment
to come through.
i am content with you,
not too much
of any one thing.
