don’t say ocean, say unending blue by Alice Hickson

don’t say ocean, say unending blue

puddles break into streams forging their path down the driveway and absence bores through me

by Alice Hickson

we lie in mid morning twilight snowflakes jump from the windowsill to the rooftop and I beg you

don’t say absence say abyss it’s not a hole it’s a valley for empty words to echo off and

my fingers are blistered from carrying these memories and running across the faded fissures of a map measuring the distance between us what we say and what we mean

don’t say it gets easier say you will participate in the slow and painful process of forgetting that maybe letting go is not dissimilar to pulling splinters from skin