In loving memory of my baby Almond (December 16, 1994-June 2, 2007), who left this world six years ago today

My dearest Mondy,

Thank you so much for the years that you gave me, for the quiet joy you brought every day that you were with me.

Thank you so much for the consolation that you gave. Life was bearable because you were there. How life changed when you left, six years ago today.

I nearly didn't have you. Fate intervened, and you were mine, and I loved you every day that you were there, as I love you now, even though you are no longer with me.

My dearest Mondy, how I love you, even now that you are gone. My lovely Almond, my dearest, dearest Come Baby.

Six years to the day, the tears still come.

"One Day" (in memory of my baby Almond)

And then she died, just like that.

I saw nothing different in the day,

in the sunlight, in the dawn,

in the breath of the June breeze,

in the new scent of morning.

Perhaps I wasn't listening;

maybe it was there, somewhere

whispered in the wind,

if there was even one to hear.

Perhaps it was in the little motions,

the little things that tell you…

if you could only see and listen.

I neither saw nor heard.

I found a day, outside concern,

no different from yesterday;

there were no voices from heaven,

no inklings of divinity.

There was no wisdom in existence,

no great majesty proclaimed;

no purpose to the day but to live,

and for her but to die.

With a breath, a twist,

One last gasp, and she was gone.

And just like that, she died.

Even then there were no questions,

there was no reason;

there were no inner bickerings

or vain inspirations.

One afternoon,

she just died.

No purpose to the day but to live and to move on,

And for her, no more object to her life but to die.

A wish in early morning

I must die this year. Please.

So missing my babies.

My dearest babies, my Boobie, my Almond, my Vixen.
I miss all of you so terribly.
With you, my Vixen, the pain is the greatest: it was only 16 months ago that I lost you, and I still think of that loss, the last days, your getting sick, my decision to let you.
Our time was too short, 14 years, 12 years, 13 years--all too short.
Life remains dark without you. The pain never ends.
I am so, so poor without you.
I long to be with all three of you again.
I will love you always, my babies, and I will always feel your absence.
My dearest Boobie, Almond, Vixen.

"Waitress"

I see you, and suddenly death is life:

mourning itself slithers away.

I am different, I am reborn, I am alive.

I am oblivious to my grief,

indifferent as a man who feels not and sees not

but this suddenly painful desire.

I see nothing but your hair and your haughty eyes;

you see through me and I do not care.

I see you, and life has not been taken from me,

when in fact it has, and death is imaginable.

I see you, and in death I am alive,

in this wonderful illusion of life.

The inconsequential is not, where darkness suddenly

is light, and death is life.

I breathe and desire:

my sunset is the same from one day to the next.

The whiskey dulls my pain, but opens my eyes.

I see you, a shadow in a dream so suddenly real,

as your own haughty eyes see through me:

I am not even here.

I am an old man in death mode.

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