day 8: how to turn loss into a movement of yellow.

Dear J,

Remember that time. We twisted maps with tongue ring and toenail. We terrified whiskey. We tumbled down staircases from the push of childhood fists. We made mix tapes and love as though we were experts at music and feeling. We died seven times in the calendars we were together. Remember.

I want to sew you a quilt made from iron and calcium to strengthen the heave of your tear ducts and remind you that loss is also an arrival of life. Each breath dies upon exiting, but also becomes reborn with each inhale.

I remember hearing her voice once. I cannot recall if she called me or you pushed your plastic against my ear but I could hear the vocation of her smile.

*

I was recently encouraged to write a poem about love and I dug up an old one that lists every name that ever entered my body. That is, the ones I could remember.

Do you remember that Irish pub off St. Marks. I want to write a poem about the parts of speech that stung our livers far before the liquor reached us. How can skin flirt even when sad or lying. Even when it is mourning in such a loud way that swallows cannot be heard.

I never told you that I stopped kissing you because my favorite song came on your borrowed car radio and it reminded me how alone I needed to be.

I lost a tooth one month ago. Well, a filling. It arrived in my mouth after that evening I was with you. And I had fallen. Nine stitches. Do you remember.

I lost my middle name almost twenty years ago.

I lose hair all the time.

I lose weight in the wrong spots.

I’ve lost several friends due to my inability to be myself enough.

Remember that time. You started over in new city and found your way. Remember the courage you had to leave.

Loss is the end of something, but it also begins something else. Remember.