Bodega | Treetops

Empty

wine glasses on your nightstand. You’ve been gone

six months now but I still sleep

in your bed. I feel closest to you

when I swallow the pills and blunt the knife, keep me

from hearing your voice.

I sleep in my dress again,

I sleep in the snow and listen

for that sound of the screen tearing

on the window: come to me from where

you are. Say “It’s been a long day”

because it has been a long day, hasn’t it? A long week, a long life—

and I will spend that walk home thinking about your hands.

Maybe, from this road,

I will write letters.

I will write: So tell me

how I am supposed to go only forward, only rise

to stars,

to follow this path without you?

Maybe I will stay

here. Maybe I will heal.

I will believe the divine—the lisdexamfetamine, buproprion, ziprasidone—

will start working again. Maybe this is the last of the snow

and the path will clear.

I ask you Do you think it will ever be enough?

Do you think the world will stay wild?

Do you think I will

find a way to live in it?

It’s better if I leave it alone, better if I can’t name it.

It is better if I never find my way

back to this moment.

Tomorrow will cool me with grey light, will wake me

with ice. My hands

will not shake, I won’t worry about how

I might become someone

no one

could ever live through. I will talk to my visions—

my symptoms will steady me.

Treetops