Sometimes the news gets to me. I mean how could it not? I’m trying to hold onto joy but it’s like a slippery trout trying to jump from my hands into a frying pan.

Some days

I still wake up

Inside the ache

Of remembering

Of something

I’d promised

I’d outgrow

It sits on my eyelids

It climbs into my chest

It crawls under my skin

Like an uninvited cold

Waiting to be noticed

And I notice

Fast these days

And

I feed it coffee

Buy it an omelet

Listen to its fear

Its anxious worry

There was a time

I thought healing meant

Drowning it out

With worship

Or music

Or positive quotes

Burying it deep enough

To forget it exists

But I never could

Erase it for too long

Before it wrote

Its name again

Between every word

Of every thought

So I spend the day

Listening as a friend

And I put it to bed

Tuck it in and

Whisper goodnight

Until it sinks

Into my pillow

And I fall into

The hollow of it

Once again