Dear Steele: I would be so good for you right now. I could pry you from that computer screen and take you for a walk in the park; stand barefoot on top the giant fig roots and draw out the energy to give you strength. I could carry you to the beach for a salt bath; float atop the water and absorb the energy from the sun above and the sea below.
Is my sadness still palpable? Is it sharp enough to cut; heavy enough to bury; powerful enough to bulldoze? I wonder if I am draining drops of energy from you with each tear I shed; or if I am dissipating your focus with each ode I write. I think it’s best you stay away from me; I’m going to stay away from myself. This pain is contagious. It might steal you away and lock you up in the dungeons of your mind. It might sting you and make your body swell with pain.
But then again, it might not hurt. It might just get you high like a drug: have you walking the streets like a madman talking about ‘I see dead people.’ You might just see that dead man walking past the pimento tree: that shadowless soul trapped in transition between now and never. Things could be worse. You could be nailed to a cross talking about “I, the son of God, will rise from the dead.’ They say the sadness is written on my eyes.
Your love makes music without sound; it dances with no movement. “I am missing you far better than I ever loved you.” Now isn’t that something. It’s from this book about surviving love. Instead of ‘how to survive the loss of love’ they need to write a book about how to prepare for the loss of love and warn people love is like heaven dead in the middle of hell, a completely balanced ying yang of life in death and death in life: let the buyer beware.
“I am missing you far better than I ever loved you.” It’s a one line poem from step number thirty-two of the fifty-eight things to do when there is nothing to do. It’s the step titled: “Remaining Distraught Is No Proof of Love.” Now isn’t life a bitch: after I paid all those women to holler at your grave, they still didn’t accept my official Grave Crier Certificate as proof of my love.
I carried it to the government office today, the second go ‘round husband exchange, and they said my application was incomplete. I spoke to the manager; apparently grave criers are not enough. I have to present a Title of Tears in order to prove I shed my own tears for a period of no less than six-months. With that I am eligible for a second go ‘round, but this time with a government guarantee. The book I read was released underground; perhaps I should turn it into the government, so they can stop spreading their propaganda.
Will you be the light in the darkness deep down in the dungeons of my heart, like the stars illuminating the way through the ocean dessert at night? I’ll be unmoved by the boogie man lurking around the corner; fearless, because I have a light in the midst of the darkness.
Joy and happiness greater than I knew: waiting for me and my sadness. We’ll search you out, traveling at day under the sun and at night under your love, always walking in the light.