the sun didn\'t come up today, on the first day without him, instead
clouds and street lamps late into the morning
i fill a pot of coffee, and shy away my gaze
from the coffee cups your mother got,
as a gift from her third wedding
and i try not to remember
the saturday mornings you woke up before me
to make me pancakes, and we
would drink our coffee from matching mugs
in his absence is the thing that lives in the back of my chest
it\'s technically heartbreak, but it\'s gotten congested, settled there
it\'s hard to breathe this way, crowding my lungs
i do the best to practice the breathing exercises
a kind woman taught me on a city bus
when my brother\'s baby was born
and i had an anxiety attack
i\'ll focus on my breathing and not his memory
or how he crossed his fingers when he was nervous,
or excited depending on the day
he is over and he shouldn\'t be
parts of my body don\'t know it yet
the places on my arms he doodled on in art class don\'t know it yet
my hands don\'t know it yet
the impulse to share silly things
or make references to only things we know
definitely doesn\'t know it yet
i want to unknow it