here we are, another
makeshift night, another haphazard
occasion, drinking something,
watching something, talking over
everything, and you tell me
there is something
and, as a boy, i never quite grasped it,
the power to soak up all a day’s fun
without losing myself to grief
that another sun set after all,
sobbing in my grandma’s arms
over no more bread for the ducks,
and she whispered, oh honey,
i know it
in that first year of college, i
felt time passing beneath my feet,
looked at the world around me and
felt it shifting, told my roommate
how fast it would all go, the people
we loved wouldn’t
always be here, and we
went to sleep to the sound of one another
crying from across the room
thirty-three, and my heart still shatters
at the end of every good thing,
hug you goodbye and sob on the couch,
and grief, to know it’s a shadow
left behind by yesterday’s wild joy
does not make it easy to hold,
but still my palms clasp onto it tightly,
grateful for the indigo ache,
michael king 