All these years
I thought ‘barren’
meant of the womb —
but now my body
has threatened me
with menopause
and I realize it
means of the heart.
—Terri Guillemets
melancholy
End of life
no matter which end-of-life decisions were made,
there are always regrets, there is always that guilt —
live parts of me holding onto memories of a dying you
dead parts of me holding onto living memories of you
—Terri Guillemets
Do I write grief or is it writing me?
I write all these death poems, these grief poems —
and does it really make me feel better? Or am I just
twisting my heart so that I can feel, to remember?
Because I’m afraid that if I don’t feel, I will forget.
—Terri Guillemets
Vanished
i hurt every day remembering
that i wasn’t there for you
the hardest day of suffering
— i left you painfully alone
when you needed me most
so damn close, but not there
which is the farthest away —
i was a fool, oblivious numbskull
a frozen hearted ragdoll zombie
i’m sorry
—Terri Guillemets
Death lights heavy
Hummingbird mama
abandons her nonviable eggs —
but keeps checking back
a few more times, just to be sure.
An arm falls from a sickly saguaro
and breaks open on the ground
like a prickly green eggshell —
after decades of desert still-life
a few seconds of death-motion.
But the night breeze is so beautiful
those breezes are — so beautiful
it’s hard not to get swept away.
—Terri Guillemets
A January day that lives forever
In my mind —
I’ve tried a million
times to go back
to that day —
tried to change
my choices
begged a do-over
from the universe
I’ve crippled myself with
guilt
sorrow
thrashing the quicksand
sinking in
layers of grief
fighting a sticky web
trapped in
regret-regret-regret
I don’t even care about
my own
broken heart
I’m sorry
I broke yours
—Terri Guillemets
Why we can’t let go
Regret is the glue that makes grief stick around for a lifetime.
—Terri Guillemets
May birds of spirit
mama dove paces the fence-top above her injured baby
it tries to fly with wounded wing, feathers not in sync
she waits, waits through afternoon and into nightfall
as patiently as love itself — life fluttering on the brink
—Terri Guillemets
Water cycle
to cry is beautiful —
the beauty of one’s pain
leaving the heart
—Terri Guillemets
blackout poetry created from Maud Casey, The Man Who Walked Away, 2014,
Grief bores holes
Grief bores holes
in our hearts & heads
like a woodpecker
— peck peck peck
— knock knock knock
You can’t make it stop
Eventually it flies away
— but leaves pits
that never fully heal
—Terri Guillemets
Abrupt
When you’re used to seeing someone day after day, for years on end, and then suddenly they’re gone, you
—Terri Guillemets
Forever lit with the soul of another
Immediate grief —
a falling to the knees
a bleeding of the heart
a blow to the soul
Ongoing grief —
a getting up
a call to move on
a healing & strengthening
a melding of soul
with sorrow
with loss
with life
a transforming of self
to renewed being
rebuilt with the
leavings of another
—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 —
filled with half-breaths
I’m thankful for your life
is all that gets me through
—Terri Guillemets