Unfinished Things

Some fragments, in order of when they arrived:

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The word for missing someone before they leave.

There isn't one in English. I need it.

—

What if grief is just love

with nowhere current to go?

—

I keep starting sentences I don't know how to end.

Maybe that's the work.

—

There's a specific loneliness in being known

and still feeling invisible.

I haven't figured out if it's them or me.

—

Making something from nothing feels like lying

until it doesn't.

—

She said: you're always performing.

I said: aren't you?

We never spoke again.

Both of us were right.

—

The color of a feeling I can't name:

dark violet, almost bruise,

the edges lit from somewhere internal.

—

I think I've been waiting for permission.

I'm trying to learn to be my own authority.

It's slow work.

—