i feel like i’m coming apart without you.
this devastation does not take place in a dramatic way.

it happens in a tiny pieces,
one at a time,
kind of way.

it’s not like bridges are falling.

there is no celine dion crescendo to my longing.

just pieces

like a phantom limb
like an arc of pink cherry blossoms
like a masonic temple
like a tiny painkiller in my palm
like a whole list of metaphors that,
despite the tricks of language,
cannot quite convey

these days without poetry
where i can walk beneath a wall of colour…

& not a thing.