Hold Still - A Poem

There’s the way people keep mentioning how beautiful the wildflowers will be this spring, and it helps you believe better things are just around the corner.

There’s the way not everyone can receive how deeply you feel, how honest you get, so you slip away to a place that lets you become
very

very

very

quiet,
and everything that needs to be said comes out all at once.

There’s the way you went back — the first time since the last time.

The way it hurt and then it didn’t.

There’s the way the French don’t say, “I miss you” but, “You are missing from me.” 

There’s the way that’s just not true anymore.

The way it took One Hundred Days. And counting.

The way it feels to know you have all the time in the world.

The way it won’t stop raining.

The way the waves don't break like they used to.

The way you keep losing weight.

The way you keep licking the plate clean.

The way some things are so specific, you pinch them out of thin air like wings on a butterfly to hold still and study for a little while longer.

Like how a certain arrangement of words on a page can make you feel.

Or that the world is so full of paper, and you have always loved to write.