A prompt from deepwildcoaching:
“Imagine you could speak once more with someone who has died.
What would you say? What might they say to you? What would remain unspoken?
Write a poem as a conversation across time, allowing space for words, listening, and silence.”
i: the lesson of love
Isabelle says, Isabelle says,
you discovered something within me
I could not see.
His response was swift,
falling rain:
“It was always there,
you just didn’t know
where to look.
You took life too seriously.”
& when he pauses,
staring,
his gaze meaningful.
Then, in a voice soft:
“Isabelle, try not to cry
because you had not learned
the lessons I had taught
but it turns out,
you have so much to learn.”
Followed by the deep inhale
of cigarette smoke.
Isabelle, Isabelle,
you might have started
a mini revolution of love
in his honor.
Isabelle, Isabelle,
you might have begun
the change,
showing love to others,
but you still don’t love yourself.
Isabelle, Isabelle,
he looks at her,
his gaze a bit mournful, a bit sad,
cigarette dangling
out of his mouth.
He grabs her hand,
an action as familiar as it is
foreign.
“You need to lighten up,”
he reminds her.
“Remember the girl you were,”
he tells her.
& without another word,
they fall into silent memories
together.
Finally, she tells him,
her voice shaky,
“I will be that girl again
for you.”
And before he returns to
the grave, he smiles.
And before he returns to
the afterlife, he does what
he couldn’t when he lived.
He tells her
he loved her.
ii: the lesson of magic
Your colors were so vivid —
a neon rainbow —
and I wish I could say
so many things to you now.
The fluorescent colors
that made you glow
overwhelmed many,
sometimes me,
yet I wish I could apologize.
I wish I could bring you back to say more
than just I’m sorry.
I remember you pulling me
into adventures by the hand
and pulling me
into a spotlight
I didn’t feel I warranted,
yet you made me feel so
fascinating, so magical.
I remember dancing
to a silent song
in the moonlight
and your grin as though
it was yesterday.
But then,
you were hospitalized.
You knew what it meant
to feel your emotions
too intensely.
We survived for so long.
I thought
you would make it out
of this life alive,
but the way your voice
wobbled at the end,
the way you abandoned
everything
so recklessly,
I felt fear knocking
at my breastbone.
& even I couldn’t save you.
If I could fall silent,
and just be with you,
to hold your hand,
to remind you
what it feels to be loved.
If I could tell you
I love you, I love you,
I’m sorry,
I’m so sorry,
maybe I could have saved you.
I wish I could tell you again
thank you for seeing my magic & I certainly recognized yours.
iii: the lesson of forgetting
You forgot so much.
I suppose that’s to be expected.
I don’t know if these are poems
or just letters to the dead.
But you forgot so much.
I fear forgetting too
like you did.
But you forgot little things
at first.
We forgave —
blamed trauma for creating
craters in the brain.
Accused the men
who broke into your home
for crafting holes
in your memory.
It was easier than admitting
the progression of disease.
But
you forgot days of the week,
whether the milk was fresh
or spoiled,
slowly,
you forgot to tie your shoes,
to put on your beloved
blue eye shadow, to brush your teeth.
You forgot Mother’s name.
Eventually,
you forgot to breathe in & out.
But you never forgot
your Princess.
As I walked down the long hall with you the last night,
do you remember what you said?
“You look so beautiful tonight,” you said, your eyes soft like you remembered.
Maybe there’s somewhere now
where you paint
your eyelids blue,
drink fresh milk, and remember to breathe.
The steady in & out.
I’ll try my best to remember
but I worry
I’ll adopt your forgetting disease, too.
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