my name is melia

you guys, Laura wrote this poem for me. I still can’t get over it

for m.s.

“today we thought of you,”
we said. it was a lie.
our minds wandered like a scattered flock.
we thought of teacups,
tax returns, maybe sex, but
we were silent and nobody
spoke your name. when you left
it was sunny and too warm.
i didn’t cry.

i wanted to tell you this
before the sea-changes and tides
took you away from me:
i have always been looking through
rain mosaic windows, hoping.
i wanted to be luminous,
a girl in a red coat, visible;
but the addiction persisted.
instead i am duller than a blade.
i cry while driving.
those who have read many books
on this subject (and journalists
who have read no books at all,
and are true only to their
tape recorders) say that
depression breeds in minds
that fixate on negative things.
look at the sun, they tell us,
look at the blue sky and
be happy. isn’t life precious?
they were always trying
to convince me of something.
“you have such beautiful arms.”
why did they chew you up, reject you?
are you so disposable to them?
i wanted to tell you this,
the history we share.

i would like a simpler life than this:
a clean empty room, a cat, a cast-iron pan.
each morning i’d make pancakes,
blueberries fresh from the garden,
and even if I burnt them or
was too tired to clean or
spilled batter on the countertop,
“good job,” they’d say, once they had
stored all the knives in a lockbox.
I would like a simpler life:
silence and birdsong,
a white robe, a fireplace,
the lingering promise of recovery.

i cannot speak for others, but
today i thought of you.
i never forgot.