A Poem in Dialog with Reluctant Immortals

In my own urns, black and heavy,

I keep the ashes of what you did,

of who you are and what you represent.

I carry some; I bury others;

I listen to all of them,

whispering my memory of you,

my memory of that day, in that room,

when you thought you could kill

the only part of me I loved.

What you took left a growling hunger,

but I’m no fool.

I could have filled the space,

packed it with sentimentality and surrender,

closed it like a room, never to be visited again.

But, no,

I left it open

and wailing.

I infected it with rage

and fed it my grudges.

I let it swell and inflame,

this decay you pressed into me,

this cursing, writhing shame,

because I knew that all of that

would lead me here,

to healing,

to hurling you out of my body,

to, one day, writing poems again.