Symbols

I tried to teach my student about symbolism

And he didn’t understand until I told him

It was sometimes to make boring states of being seem better

Or to make painful things seem beautiful

And I realised that I’d forgotten

About symbolism too –

That I was feeling my pain as if it were there for me to feel again and again,

As if disappointment, expectation and worthlessness

were the narratives written for me -

And so I decided to bring these symbols back into my heart to see

if they could rule me better.

I turned my back on the moon

Because it had become my everything

And obsidian became my stone, it soaked up all the sadness I stored it in.

And the only way it can be cleansed is in the light of the moon

But I did not see how two negatives could work together to make something positive.

Until you looked up at the stars

And I saw a black moon nestled on your white neck -

Hey Moon –

and I knew it would be all right soon.

It started when I held hands with death and looked up at the sky

And it came around full circle

And that thing at the pit of my stomach that told me I’d lose you has gone

And the moon means goodness again

The darkness so soft I thought I could see through it

Dimly Lantern lit

And I didn’t understand – I thought that it had to be filled out

Like the ink nestled between your fingers

I let myself slip between the cracks of the dark sky

Beneath the watery moon

And love in clichés

Romantic ideals

And overblown gestures

In nothing words

And dreams of saving the pallid

wan slip of fallen masculinity

from its descent into the dappled looking glass

the underworld of the heart

it seemed so appealing to me

cracked mirrors and moons

and dark woods, gnarled trees

drooping nooses waiting for me

that was my namesake – bound; noose;

captivating –

and I looked for the tree that you fell from

into that real tragedy in the wood

many a time and meditated

panicked until I exploded in the everything of it all

in that moment

dwelling on the absence of love I felt I was owed

scratched over every simple trace of you

I could ever find

Inhaled you before you disappeared from my mind.

And felt the pain of losing you in every guitar strum and wail

But thought I would disintegrate if I didn’t continue to feel

And again I tried to turn my back on you – the moon

I had forgotten the sun on my face

And absence came more present than present

And I could feel you silvery and transparent at my neck

Now there’s no more left

I sit barefoot, cinders and burnt out stars at my feet

I feel the burn from the embers and now they only tickle

I can try to remember that depth does not only lie in sickness

And a willingness

To continue like Orpheus to the underworld

A narrative I inherited as well

I don’t have to keep watching you die again and again

I want to trace your tenderness intertwined in mine

And feel it raised, real and solid beneath my finger.