Breathless

"Grief is stupid."

To feel nothing.

At least grief reminds us
that there are things worth losing,
things worth dying for.

To feel nothing
is to die from a random bullet
in the countryside.

To grieve is to hear that your husband
was shot by a gambler,
much handsomer than he.

"Take your top off."

You would, most of the time
because you only ever felt
his full attention
when you were making love.

He spoke, always with a cigarette
smoldering in between his lips,
eyes darting towards the pregnant phone.

To love him was to lose him.
To not love him was impossible.
Somehow his compliments would derail
into praises of foreign women's faces

and asses,
but the way he called you charming
sent shivers down your slender fingers.
Try to see your smile from the side.

"Cowardice is the worst flaw."

Worse than recklessness?
Worse than infidelity?
Worse than betrayal?

Cowardice is the acknowledgement
of the tiny creeping voice
that asks if perhaps you are wrong.

Bravery is stepping on that voice
until it's screams are stifled
so that you never need
to think twice.