the room is sterile

free from any love germ

only the tiny beasts of whatever

perfect in nature are adored here

in this sterile cold dry room

my gut told me

“She passed.”

referring to the death of an aunt

i hardly knew

i don’t feel grief

not yet

and

as i explained to my-self

some people might never feel it

to mourn loss is difficult

to mourn loss of a loved one is hard

to mourn for and carry a heavy heart for an enemy

is tougher

i don’t feel such loss for the masculine things in life

as i do for the feminine

to have had a physical mother

never to have experienced an emotional mother

or spiritual mother

has been loss

yielding veils of survival

darning lies as i went along

because for this ride

you must be tough

to have had to rip my addiction demons

from me without a cowboy’s hickory stick

to bite on

while all of Murphy’s laws

chose to shred themselves

has left a raw gaping hole

in my crippled soul

yet there is a certain life-long journey

a chipping away of the spirit

the grief polishes

nearly to transparency and vulnerability

that fake shine as seen on t.v.

we can certainly fight

for all our lives

against this erosion

but we will not win

in my age

i can now see

the entirety of who Taino was

what he meant to me

i could not

in my youth

see that deeply yet

*dedicated to Jose Montoya POET