Since I haven’t posted in a long while, I thought I’d add one of my latest poems. It’s rough, but here it goes:
Today I Didn’t Miss You
But every cell in my body,
those well-worn patched
cells practiced in grief and loss,
the easy stuff of wanting
to hear your laugh or see you dance —
are now wedged open wide,
hollowed out, in need of not
nourishment, but lifeblood.
A sharp ledge, an edge
I never knew existed
had been waiting for me
to step off and fall
from the place
(the safe place)
that memories
and solid ground
end.
Now I grasp for just one
buried nest of branch
one sliver of jutting root —
my fingernails digging deep
into soil, all of it turning to dust
and giving way, my face
descending against rock
tongue tasting earth
teeth biting gravel
removing thin layer
after thin layer of me,
until finally, on the way
down,
I understand:
This is the difference
between
missing you
and needing you.
(C) Copyright 2022. Kathy Lynn Harris.
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