guilt is a soft animal

dear you,

once, i built a life like a hush
gathering at the edge of thunder.
and i loved you the way that silence
loves a clock:
for its ticking, not its truth.

i did not mean to go,
but i kept finding my hands empty
even as you held them.
perhaps this is the moment
where the river stops pretending
it can love the stone
more than the sea.

something in me answered
to a name you never learned to say.
guilt is a soft animal,
it waits beneath the bed
never baring its teeth.
i carry its silence with me,
and step over it each morning.

you were the quiet i promised myself
i could learn to live inside.
but silence is not the same
as being held.

the air changes,
not louder, just warmer,
as if it knows what i have forgotten to want.
i do not follow it,
but i leave the window ajar.
somewhere beyond the trees
a light shifts;
and for a moment,
i forget which direction i was facing.

yours, kate

(artwork: field with two rabbits, vincent van gogh)