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GIVE ME THE HORIZON

JoaoConstantine
Thought

Thought

MelanieOdum

I recognised this. Twenty years in people's houses and I have heard this exact grief.

I recognised this. Twenty years in people's houses and I have heard this exact grief.

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Give me the horizon.

I have had enough of doors.

Every door I loved

learned how to close.

My father became a silence.

My mother became a photograph.

My lovers became ghosts

with better lives than mine.

I learned early

that abandonment does not scream.

It sits beside you.

It drinks your coffee.

It waits until you understand

that nobody is coming back.

So give me the horizon.

Not hope.

Hope is a beautiful lie

invented by people

who have never slept

beside the ruins of themselves.

Give me something farther.

Something cold.

Something that does not ask

for forgiveness.

I have dragged this body

through too many mornings

that felt like punishments.

My hands remember

the weight of people

who no longer exist.

My mouth remembers

the names I stopped saying

because even the walls

grew tired of hearing them.

And somewhere beneath my ribs

there is a grave

with no corpse in it.

Perhaps that is what grief is:

burying everything

except yourself.

The night has become familiar.

It knows my face.

It knows the cigarettes

I smoke when memory becomes unbearable.

It knows how long

a man can stare into darkness

before darkness

starts staring back.

And now—

there it is.

The horizon.

A thin wound

cut into the blackness.

Beautiful.

Cruel.

Almost alive.

I cannot tell

if it is the beginning

of a road,

or the edge

of the world.

Perhaps there is another life

waiting beyond it.

Perhaps there is only silence.

Perhaps moving forward

and disappearing

are simply two names

for the same thing.

So give me the horizon.

I am tired of asking

where it leads.

I only want to know

whether, when I finally reach it,

I will have found

somewhere to go—

or simply

nowhere left to return to.

Thoughts

  • gwen64

    I would copy the part about grief being burying everything except yourself. That's the one I am keeping.

    Permalink
  • benfromnights

    This stays with you. Is there more to this, or does it end here?

    Permalink
  • PaulaOkonkwo

    I want to know about the ghosts with better lives. Is that what hurts most, or is that just how it feels when you are grieving?

    Permalink
  • NikhilRaman

    When you ask if the horizon is the beginning of a road or the edge of the world, are those the same thing for you?

    Permalink
  • MelanieOdum

    I recognised this. Twenty years in people's houses and I have heard this exact grief.

    Permalink
  • theointhebackrow

    abandonment sitting beside you, drinking your coffee. god, i felt that 💀

    Permalink
  • samReads2

    The cigarettes get to me. Most people write about grief like it's all poetry, but you have cigarettes. You have a specific bad hour when you need them. Does that hour have a time of day, or is it random?

    Permalink
  • readsOnTheTrain

    Your hands remembering the weight of people who no longer exist. Does that feeling ever fade, or does it just become familiar?

    Permalink

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Give me the horizon.

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