today I cried but it still feels tender

today my sister would have been 27.

her last birthday, celebrated, was the 18th.

she died 4 days later.

this morning i cried when i remembered 

last night's dream:

i had a time machine,

and sweet and loving, tender me,

27-year-old me, went back then,

to my soon to be 18-year-old sister,

wriggling in bed from the pain,

and with the sweetness only time gives you

i took her suffering away.

a new chance at life, magically.

with a cup of coffee in hand i cried

out of frustration and hearbreak

at the impossibility of life,

the permanence of death,

the undying quality of love.

i cried hours ago but it still feels tender.

my eyes feel swollen and my head hurts.

i've been reading, trying to get poems out of my head,

sit down, maybe type something.

it's a beautiful day and the spring sun shines again

in my kitchen:

the birds sing in the distance,

the refrigerator slowly hums,

my boyfriend kisses my cheek and understands

how i will always hurt.

the undying qualities of love.

the railways

there's a city which sprawls in contempt
underneath our feet, even when we sleep,
it goes on and on rambling about the passing of time,
about the turmoil,
about long lost love and how the railways
are not what they used to be, even so, they are no longer
selling tickets in paper stubs or newspapers that you can fold
and tuck under your arm as the train
comes and goes.
so then you look at how the trees hurl and the wasps nest on the tin roof;
there's nothing there except for the invisible,
nature can never retain that sense of authenticity
we often look for in someone we love.

it's just what it is, you tell yourself,

as people jump turnstiles and run down the stairs to meet the new train,
the next train, that buzzes and zooms, that sings a polyphonic song.
unease runs through the velvet cushions that line the seats

and the train continues to ramble on into the darkness,

never contemplating death,

but never stopping to look at it.

you emerge into the light, no sunglasses,

what could you do with them? your hand as a hat,

your hands, your swollen knuckles,

they extend less and less with time. the city looks back at you

as you walk down, the little white squared tiles

that line the cathedral entrance, you break down

into tears thinking how the've torn it all down:

all the sense of belonging, all the music, all the magic.

there's a city which sprawls in contempt. there's a city

even when the wind tries to blow it all away.

no one can convince you of that, you'd have to see it to believe it,

you wouldn't dare to dream it

it's the city that holds the secret of what makes us,

what an individual is not, 

and what a person should be.