tea for one
memories for two
embrace the alone
drink to hope
—Terri Guillemets
Nightstand Journal
Grieving to the marrow
GRIEF twists the heart
and contorts the mind
carves the spirit hollow
wrings the past to tears
torrentially obscuring future
LOVE saturates memory
until sorrow overflows
into every pore of present
ALL you can feel is emptiness
and a lump in the throat
platitudes no consolation
but living on nonetheless
—Terri Guillemets
Half-breaths
Grieving is being
at the bottom
of quicksand
trying to claw
my way up —
because I need to breathe
When you died, my
breath left with you
my lungs, my life —
are filled with half-breaths
I’m thankful for your life
is all that gets me through
—Terri Guillemets
Grief at dark of night
My grief is like a magician’s endless scarf — the more I let out the more there is.
—Terri Guillemets
Holes & tears
Missing you isn’t just an empty void — it’s what-ifs and questions and endless thoughts and bittersweet memories and runaway feelings and emotions that can’t get a hold on anything physical so just slip and slide around my mind, and hide and re-emerge.
—Terri Guillemets
What 45 feels like at 3 a.m.
Middle age — a stealthy, crafty nemesis.
—Terri Guillemets
Emanate
You don’t always have to pray for something, or to someone — you can just, simply, pray.
—Terri Guillemets
Spirit-gears
A beating heart needs a soul to go with it, or it’s nothing but a machine.
—Terri Guillemets
Trails
The last breath is as sacred as the first.
—Terri Guillemets
Insomnia ink
3 a.m. ink is pure and unfiltered,
specks of truth glimmer in candlelight
—Terri Guillemets
None excluded
Prayer is for the grateful and for the grateful-to-be.
—Terri Guillemets
Whole body, whole spirit
We thank on our knees
with folded hands
for full bellies
and fuller hearts.
—Terri Guillemets
Two A.M. drops
Dancing in the rain
At nature’s cloudy party
—Terri Guillemets