CW: grief & death

her dad is landscaping over the vegetable garden they created together

i think about ordinary things, attend a retirement morning tea, wash my clothes

she is always as i last saw her, grinning in her grocery store uniform

waiting to hug me, sitting opposite in a cafe, we’ve split a donut.

i think about ordinary things, go to work, eat sushi in the park 

the first couple of months were hopelessness and now it hits me like 

power bills, it waits for me on the kitchen bench, we open it careful 

with our keys, we put it in the fireplace, i think about ordinary things

inconsequential; my best friend is dead, it’s almost october; basil, beetroot

pepper season, i kick leaves from the sidewalk, i run in the evenings

i spent july getting scans; a sore chest, bruised ribs, ordinary things.

i was never very good at being happy, no one forgave that hamartia like she did

i sleep with my curtain open, i split meals with friends, everything has meaning

where there used to be none. i do not know what to do with all of this feeling,

all of these moments which i want to give to her. just one last plate together,

one last thing split in two, 

i am begging.

everything, all the poems and messages all say a version of the same thing,

i miss her, we miss her. simple as winter turning to spring, another year,

ordinary things. i want to say something better, something that does justice to this

something that puts language where there is otherwise none, something that

makes all the ordinary things less painful; something that brings her back.

something that says the unsayable; i’d sit there watching you scan groceries all day,

i’d buy vegetable seeds, i’d put them in rows for you. we could split a donut,

when i’m done. i’d give you the bigger half and we’d be happy.