Alice Smith

“It should weigh nothing.
Just wood and air,
a shape meant for sitting,
a space meant for filling.
But somehow, it carries more than I do.
This chair—
your chair—
still leans slightly to the left,
still remembers the way you sat,
one leg tucked under,
hands resting lightly on the arms,
as if you were always about to leave
but never quite did.”
― Mason Carter, Saltwater & Smoke: Poems of Almosts, Goodbyes, and What We Leave Behind

“The air is thick, the stone is cold,
These chains are rust, these years are old.
Darkness lingers, gnaws, decays,
A hollow tomb in endless days.”
― Mason Carter, Gothic Poems to Love & Liberty: A Collection of Poems on Myths & Broken Hearts

“The mattress has not learned you are gone.
It still bends in the shape of you,
dips where your weight once settled,”
― Mason Carter, Saltwater & Smoke: Poems of Almosts, Goodbyes, and What We Leave Behind

“If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry.”
― Emily Dickinson