Somewhere there is a man listening so deeply

that he can barely hear at all.

Once I wondered

would he miss me?

Do flowers miss dirt?

I don’t know, but I’d say they’d crave it.

Home

so I guess it’s nostalgic,

in the cycle towards springtime.

It’s grieving,

a lack of information outside of knowing

and reacquainting myself

with the beautiful places of the world as sites of massacre.

Moments like waves and me a boat

tethered to a dock and still unstable

tears as tides almost breaking

and subsiding.

Smelling the white flowers in the sunshine

brings me again to the precipice of weeping.

They are the sweet boys to me now,

ready to wilt and rise up

only when prompted by everything else.

I pass them.

I bring my breath deep

full and tightening

I eek into my own empty space

and my brain is afraid it will feel dead there,

but I am relieved to find that pressed upon

my interior is moss after a spring rain.

There, at the nexus of the birch limbs

that carry me around,

all of the tears that

could not arrive

with thoughts of loss

have been absorbed,

puddled in a tiny ocean,

waiting for me

waiting for you

to call upon them.

Perhaps this was the organic wanting

that was haunting me

nothing has even been heard to be missed

just placed too far away to understand.