Honestly, I don’t feel like writing another f’n break-up poem but no one told my pen. Clearly, it is not yet done.

My puppy just had surgery ten days ago and today she was freed from the cone around her neck. That cone was to protect her from ripping open her stitches before she was healed. She can’t stop licking her scar. Her tongue keeps going at her belly and the space she’s been itching to scratch.

I’m kind of doing the same thing except with my heart.

I kept myself from writing too much right away because I didn’t want to make the pain worse.

Now, I seem to be stuck in the same spot where love once was. I’m not sure if I’m trying to open or close the wound. Maybe both.

I’ll be glad to pick my head up and get back to the fetching part of life soon enough with my puppy. But like the snow melting – it’s not happening fast enough.

I’m in the sick-of-it already stage. 

But even as I lament my lamenting I’m grateful for the gifts of emotion and expression.

There was a time in my life when it felt like a supreme accomplishment to treat an ex like he was easy to get over, as though he were so totally and completely optional and non-essential that his departure didn’t impact my life at all.

Yeah, it was bullshit bravado which made me feel less vulnerable, tough and probably fueled my passion for carbohydrates. But it was more than that.

It was mean.

I wanted the other person to believe that they had not mattered all that much to me and I wouldn’t give them the benefit of knowing I either missed them or that they hurt me. I wanted them to think their absence created no void in me.

Now, I know it is bravery that allows me to feel the departure of my ex, the same bravery that allowed my joy at his arrival.

He mattered and was unique, interesting and central to my life for a time that once seemed it might stretch into forever. Even though our love didn’t turn out to be the kind we share side-by-side while stuff grows up and out of us – my heart notices the spaces where he once was.

And that he isn’t any longer.

When I get a late night or early morning message I think it’s him before I remember we’re not. He’s who I think of when birds hover close to the water or I see someone out on open water. He made an impact and stretched parts of my practical life and psyche that I pay attention to and care about. Even little things like an old piece of furniture and covers for basement windows are gifts I get to keep.

And appreciate.

There’s so much I’m grateful for. I’m in the grumpy phase where I don’t want to ever date again even though I love being in a relationships. I’m cynical and dubious about love.

But I know that’s temporary.

I actually like people and getting to know them and their world.

And sharing mine.

And this breaking up when it isn’t meant to last forever in the connected at the hip kind of way is part of life and the process .

And so I surrender to my place. I surrender to my pen.

Here’s another f’n break-up poem.

Photo Credit: Margaret Bellafiore

Clock Envy

The questions I want to ask

can’t be answered.

Shapes once hard and sweet melt in my mouth.

I have to learn to let them linger on my tongue, dissolve –  get sharp before disappearing.

All the sucking I have done becomes me.

Does it matter where the questions come from?

Debris dropped on my lawn by the ocean after the last flood piles up in my yard.

“Not my mess,” I want to yell

but there’s no denying it’s my lot.’

Belongs to me.

I sort the plastic mixed with drift wood on my dirt.

What was solid evaporates into me.

My thoughts about us can’t be shared with you.

What good are questions I can’t stop asking?

I’m an answer collector.

I want to pile them on my mantle like rocks, shells and touchstones I can finger.

Remember when you wanted to know the significance of what I did or did not treasure?

You are now among the objects I’ll someday discuss.

What answer could be bigger than what’s been done?

Grieve with Spirit and the sun shines oblivious.

Celebrate with God and night will ground me.

The clock keeps ticking even though we stopped.

I’m jealous of her hands for moving on and over –

I cannot.