NPM Day 10 {Clutching}

--This one still hits me in the gut. Every. Single. Day.

Clutching
November 24, 2016

It was this time last year,
my hands thick with flour,
lungs swelling with cinnamon,
wondering how
I could have said such things.

Here I wait at a precipice,
no longer looking down
but gazing out,
wondering,
with this clutching feeling
at my collarbone
where my body filled with rage,
and I forsook you.

How did I collect such feelings
without anyone else seeing?
How did the world turn
while I held on and on and on,
but you had let go
when we were young?

No one ever stopped us.
No one ever said
to love more softly,
to give you up freely,
to succumb to the emptiness of loss.
No one told you
to love more fiercely,
to hold onto my dearly,
to understand how we
needed each other.

And then no one let me grieve.

Until this time last year.
I poured my regrets
and stirred my tears
in with the spices,
waking up with the sunlight,
wondering
alone in the kitchen,
wondering how
could I have said those things,
how did my bitterness taste
in your mouth,
how could I go on like this,
how could I,
how could I love,
how
could I love you less.