(1.)

know this
my dear,

you will be a thousand different people

most of them strangers
and few of them kind

before you will ever be yourself again

such is the cost
of loving after loss

such is the sacrifice
that healing doth require

and it will take the blood
of all thousand of your living ghosts
to someday begin anew

but I promise
come the dawn of that new day

you will know again
that the name of hope
is yours
and yours alone.

---

(2.)

a true self-portrait
is painted
with our eyes closed

only so
can we see
which vestiges of flesh
are uninhabited

only so
will we come to understand
where our shadows weigh
when light decays.

---

(3.)

dearest one,

what if I told you
that time
is a tenderness

that what is
now
that what has been
and what will be

is just soapstone

stardust

form

and stardust again?

and so
there is no prison
to whatever extent existence dares take
that we couldn’t simply exhale ourselves out of?

would that be loving enough
to compel you

to finally let me go?

---

(4.)

lullabies
are really just eulogies

so loving

that they redefine our goodbyes
into a promise

that someone will wait for us
wherever it will be
that morning comes

so come
give in

and let Death,
Ocean,
Moon,
Dark
and all our other mothers
sing us back to the sun

beloved.

---

(5.)

I don’t think anyone
will ever really know me

until they too have drowned

in that moment
where drizzle turns to rain

I couldn’t help but smile

as waves of relief
crashed over me

because I never did expect

to finally be deemed
worthy
of such a tender end

you know?

to finally finish
mourning myself

just in time
to die alone

and full knowingly
at peace
gift myself this way of leaving.

what joy
by which this Dutch alien
now awaits the rain

by which
this reformed stranger
has since learned
to live again.