©BREATHE, DARLING
[From the Poem-like Letters I Never Sent to You series]
Breathe, Darling.
Sigh, if you dare, with relief because I have calmed down.
I can’t seem to unlace my thoughts—
it’s as though my minds on radio silence because
the world’s frequency isn’t right for me.
I’m not quite as wicked as is said; however, I did slip on
the tiled kitchen floor,
abraded my onion skin,
and ate my own wickedness.
I also ate the vigilantes of the extreme right.
It poisoned me until I was throwing up.
I felt like John.
Yes, that character in Brave New World.
Everyone said, ‘It can’t happen here’. ‘Everyone’ was wrong!
As it turned out, he was a fascist!
What was more frightening than his actions was the speed—
and eagerness—
at which a crazy-quilt of hater, fascist citizens joined him in his
authoritarian crusade.
The hatred spread across Earth faster than this pandemic!
Many of us cried.
Many of us are hiding so we can survive the madding cruelty coming with the new
year.
So, do not write to me.
I mail this to you but with no return address for me.
When this end,
when you come home
if you are alive
if I am alive
don’t look for me. I will find you.
I wrote a poem for you but, well, BUG HOLES!
I found what was left of this, as other poems I’d hid in a
cupboard—
yes, the cupboard in that ancient, abandoned house.
I was saving them for the right time to send to you.
TERMITES found them before I could sneak back to that house
(to retrieve, and now to save).
Oh, heaven help me, I lost all those words!
I rewrote this one, added newer, fewer, and some left-over
words to those eaten.
I
loathe those unexplained deep sighs
that
leave me feeling like a person with COPD;
but
at least with that, those people feel,
which
is better than the empty chest
feeling
I live with since you’re gone.
Please know and believe I’m still afraid of that word.
Yes, that one: goodbye. So, I won’t say it.
It may be an alteration of ‘G-d be with ye’, but it’s also a
conclusion.
I don’t want us to conclude, so I’ll end with All My Love.
Until the end of time, I am always
Your Love
(unsigned)
