Veronika McCarl Poet Free verse

I Grieve the Man I'll Never Get to See

It’s lonelier to grieve. 
Because I knew you. 
Because I loved you. 
Because I still do. 
And now I carry that love 
Like a body that won’t stop breathing. 

I cry for the life you didn’t live. 
For the mornings you missed. 
For the years I still imagine even though 
I know better. 

I cry because I saw you becoming 
And then I saw you stop. 
I drown in thought. 
Not memory
That would mean you were here. 
I drown in the future I built around you. 
The one you never asked for 
But I gave you anyway. 

You were supposed to stay. 
You were supposed to grow old. 
I grieve the man you never got to be. 
The one I still talk to in my head when I’m scared
Or tired 
Or pretending I’m fine. 

I grieve the version of me 
Who would’ve loved you longer. 
Who would’ve learned how to forgive you for leaving.
I hate the silence. It sounds like you. 
I hate the quiet. It feels like you. 
I hate the way I still wait for something
that isn’t coming. 

You are gone. 
But you are everywhere. 
In the things I can’t say.
In the breath I hold. 
In the way I keep living 
Like it means something.
~~~

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