The Bad Days

I get through the bad days better now
the days where he’s gone
pouring himself into work
art
the things where I’m not

I no longer drag myself through these days
I just
push myself through them
and wade through the anger that threatens to
keep
me
stuck

I make statements to myself
about
nails in coffins
straws on hump-backed camels
and then I wake up in the morning
and the anger’s less deep

I’m floating on its surface and I just tell him
that hurt

I don’t know if he’s my forever
I don’t
because so much of who he is
is not what I need
at all
not even close
and maybe I am done
maybe my
patronage is over
spent
won
resolved
completed

and maybe my someone
is right around the corner
or maybe it’s all of us
somehow
some way
I can’t see
and don’t need to see

I don’t know

I don’t know
and on the bad days
I want to know
I try to know
I make mental notes on an endless chart of For and Against
and I wait to read it out to him
check
check
check
tallying up the marks that lead to the obvious conclusion that this is not for me

But I get through the bad days better now
and there have been fewer of them
and more good days
or at least neutral days
and
I don’t know if he’s my forever

but I also don’t know that he’s not

on the bad days I want and need to know

but on the good days, I just am