June

June
Oh sad sweet June
I used to love you 
Your wide open skies and
early summer sunshine and 
flowers popping up from 
foliage everywhere  
Your birdsong and butterflies
Your fine gold sunsets

But these last two years

While you still dazzle me with
your effortless splendor
Every lush surface is
stitched through now with 
thick black thread in uneven lines 
A too-large needle 
jabbed through delicate fibers
Seams jagged where the scenery never 
got pieced back together quite right 

Like how my tears split the grass 
beside the stone where he lies buried
Plastic pink and purple flowers 
fractaling into the single red rose
they put in the small vase next to the door
of the room where he took his last breath

Father’s Day
then
The Day I Lost Him — 
two gut punches that won’t let me 
forget

And I don’t want to 

But I miss being her 
The one without shadows in
June

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Hey, reader. Sorry it’s been a while. This time of year is damn rough for me, and May was a dumpster fire of a month where I got switched to an Adderall generic that almost completely blocked me creatively — while I was also dealing with a shitstorm of unexpected expenses.

Then as May turned to June, I traveled back east to see family for a socially-packed trip where basically everything reminded me of my dad. I realize more every day that grief is absolutely not a series of predictable stages you move through in order. Grief is more a loop than a line. A corralling hoop full of hooks that circle back to pierce you when you least expect it. And it never ends, only changes.

So thank you for reading all of this and for being here. To those I read, I promise I’ll catch up and get to liking and commenting on all your stuff again soon. I’m on the better meds and feeling more myself, finally. So that’s something.

If you’re new and want more of my writing and drawings, feel free to subscribe. If you want to share or heart or comment, that’s cool too.