views of worlds left behind

nona always wrote that the same circumstances that harden the heart soften the skin,

but her unpublished pages still didn't know as many tears as wakefield's poems.

poems were the only thing that told charles why he could sing 'hallelujah" with the congregation

& still feel like he  was in a hell

he couldn't extol.

henry, his drug of choice was pills & enshroudment

but his wife's drug was more work, more scolding and more church.

elizabeth,

elizabeth's drawers were full of boys she's never talked to, 

and death letters she'd never quite signed;

while her brother joseph would climb the staircase to the roof where he'd strum his heartstrings.

he'd look down again wanting to kiss that soft concrete

except this time he'd pucker his lips

don't tell me that this isn't humanity.

because humanity is pissing on bushes that took years to twist their roots

& standing over people who took even longer to unravel theirs.

(but if you feel as though you're being uprooted, don't stop trying to bloom).

nona crumpled her pages and shouted

"i've been putting pen to paper for months, how have i not written the loneliness out of me yet?

if i was a poet, the ache in my chest would know it"

 & charles smashed his window so he could swallow the truthful air

while he threw his church tie out into the garden.

elizabeth remembered that her closet was full of letters she'd never wrote & dresses she'd never worn;

 and joseph kept pleading with the Man who lives at the top of the Staircase

                                                                  "let me go,

                                                                              just let me go."

_________________________________________

as for me, i will finally say to my father

"i still listen to your 8-tracks & wear your leather jacket because i like to remind myself of you,

just please don't let my mother forget what you look like when you smile

& don't let anyone forget what you laugh like when you're not trying to.

now nona, 

the corners of her pages are unfolding

& she couldn't write this poem with her pen so she wrote it across her heart

THIS IS HUMANITY.

charles

is told that his garden is salvation;

he walks between his pine trees & shouts his soul to the sky

and elizabeth,

she twirls in her leather dresses & exhales her words across people's lips.

as for joseph,

he takes a walk down the staircase to charles' garden

& lets the snowflakes speckle his glasses, fill his smile & wrinkle his leather shoes

(he's untwisted his roots).

for you, and for me...

i know that our bedrooms are starting to feel like graveyards

but remember that nothing is stitched into stone.

if they try to cover your eyes, the light from your irises will penetrate the fragile skin of their hardened fingers;

the teeth in your smile are made out of a million different versions of the moon

& you have always only ever been more than enough.

so take off your leather jackets:

leave them behind

and come unravel this thread with me.

(fondly & forever,

'nona)