Poetry

Resignation from Grief

Look by now
I have spent all my money,
on sending angry voice recordings
of "Letters to Milena"
To someone now dead.

And have crumbled to past traumas

So many times now that there

Are not any more places left
in my body to injure.
Everyone I know by now has grown tired

of me stuffing my mouth with April's

Reeking of insomnia and self-pity.

Instead, when you complain about why

I do not produce pretty poems about violinists who wear
Orange too much and cover Iron & Wine

And are sentimental.
I cannot explain to you how I am on borrowed ink

And have grown too fixated on writing my
Fatalities on the upper thighs of people who

Do not text me back and with drunk Irish poets with
Answering machines that play an

Apology for not being there

And congratulates you on how
You still have not killed yourself.

Now, listen, I am running out of words,

And these clumsy recollections of how

I offered myself to
Scraped knees on long sofas and

Every time, imploding over other people's wounds

Are all returning to me.
Look, we are all inconsolable, and

I have wasted far too many

Hours trying to shrug off my
Loneliness and on Gregory Isakov.

And if I could someday,

I will write about false optimism and about

an alternate reality where you
Have knots in your hair

And you play the Violin and read Joyce to me.

but for now, I will settle for your
Absence and some more Gregory