The Sad Poem

I distilled all the things
drop by drop, the large pile of
belongings, with tags and names -
I distilled them
with the liquid pen
over many years
and they were smaller and smaller
they lost their
shape and their size
but they stayed large in my eyes
their outline as it was
huge and ghostly.

I distilled them until
eventually they were tiny pieces
only and they had disappeared.
My tears did it, salty,
profuse, cried them all
out of time and use
and the betrayal burned
deep into me, etched,
as the years parted the wood
and made them useless.

I lost them all, all of the
markers of youth and family,
all of the things that made us
and I lived on in a world
of trinkets, meaningless,
having thrown out the weight
and the worth.
Once I had made them go
instead of space left, and
freedom, all I had
was dearth.

previous poem

next poem