Grass lungs

A collection of poems about aging, forests, and grief.

A kitchen table
is no longer
a requirement
in a home.

The older you grow
the less you leave
your bedroom.

The ceremonial act
of eating has been
replaced.

It is now a boring necessity.

A lot of things come
to feel this way
with age.

You remember climbing
hills made of stones
when you were young.

You miss that freedom.

Your joints
began to fail you
in your teens.

They have held
you hostage,
ever since.

Your head
has been full
of oceans
for as long as you
remember.

Tumultuous violence
or inhumanly calm,
but seldom
in-between.

You never dwelled
in the embrace
of water
for long.

And you drowned, anyway.

You wondered how
the trees thrived

silently

as they felt
the world burn
for years beyond
your comprehension.

You wondered if
you’d live to be
that patient
someday
too.

You felt safest
amongst trees
and all living things
they harboured.

A constellation of eyes
that never once
condemned you.

You were gifted
permission
to exist.

By creatures
that could not
know better.

The forest taught you
how to start a garden
of your own.

It seemed counter-intuitive
for your violent nature
to begin something
as gentle
as this.

A part of you did so
out of defiance;
you are good
at destruction.

But you
are capable
of care
too.

Here lies a lover
who was buried
at seventeen
years old.

It was lung cancer.
He didn’t smoke.

Many thought
your inability
to express grief
meant you
did not,
somehow,
feel it.

They buried you then,
too.

Here lie two souls.

Their hearts failed them.

You thought it unfair;
Their hearts never failed you.

This grave is empty
but you are so sure
you will one day
find someone
resting there.

You gave them oxygen
as they robbed you of yours.

You no longer know
how well they’re
breathing.

Unfinished stories
are the hardest
to let go of —

they don’t feel

tangible
enough

to lose.