When my 17 year old cat passed the nurse gave us a tuft of his hair. Separated from his body, the sleek black turned a ratty, dull sort of

gray. I placed it up on the mantel, and wondered is this the sort of thing to keep

We tried to say goodbye, when we did I took his cold body and landed it on my warm chest. I sought his heart beat with my own. I

committed to memory the feeling of his weight balancing out my own.

When I was younger and

My mother would come to gather me from a friend's house, we hid in closets. Legs tucked under ourselves, I tried not to giggle as our close

breaths warmed the small space, can the day please stay

I took the fireworks down on a 4th of July evening and brought their brightness in permanent marker on my left arm

I try to say

I do not say

I cry to you in a hospital room. You are farther, smaller than you have been. Your body is unnatural in that it looks like dust in that it looks

removed in that I can not see how it once carried

I tried to crawl myself back into you, asking you to be tender. Touch my skin, brush hair from my face, to pour me a glass and apologize,

bony knees on linoleum, mirror-like floors, our tears mixing

Become one grand reunion

I arrived at college. I sit on top of a waterfall and my friends accompany the pain in my body with their love. The hurting cascades, crashes,

then flows. I am a river, I do not say goodbye. ⬥