Oh
Been gone for a minute, but you know they can't keep a real one down for long
Oh
You’ve been faced with the dawning realization
that adulthood is nothing
like you expected.
The title is not dramatic.
Nor devastated.
Nor a wound dressed up
in theater.
Just the utterance
of a single syllable.
Oh.
Well.
This is where I ended up.
It’s not simply grief.
Something smaller.
Something worse.
It’s a “Who the hell am I?
Why do I keep ending up here?
Why has nothing changed
except the names
of the people I ruin myself for?”
Oh.
You love music
that makes sadness beautiful.
Artists who reached for everything
and lost enough
to call the emptiness holy.
Artists who enjoy suffering,
not because they love pain,
but because they never learned
another way to feel alive.
So they build cathedrals
from the broken glass
they lay at their own feet,
kneeling there, bleeding,
wondering why life
never turned out
the way they planned,
still building,
still praying,
still refusing
to simply clean up.
Oh.
Not revenge.
Connection.
You are not screaming
“fuck you,”
not this time,
Though God knows,
how much you love the shape
of those words in your mouth.
Maybe, just maybe,
you are finally reflecting.
The crying has stopped.
It is not a week after anymore.
It has been months,
and now you are just existing
in the room
you swore
you would never enter again.
“I’m so over him,”
you said,
and fell back
within a week.
Oh.
I hope your emotional color
is shifting into something new.
Late October.
Leaves dying beautifully
because that’s what leaves do.
A chill in the breeze.
Cold enough for a sweater,
But maybe you wear a tee
just to say you suffer.
Because, again, you love
the shape of suffering.
No storm.
No lightning.
No rain
against the window.
Just a quiet gray.
Oh.
I don’t hear hatred.
I don’t hear revenge.
I don’t hear a cry for help
or some empowered anthem
you pretend
means healing.
I hear the absence of anger.
Maybe finally aimed
in the right direction.
Not at me.
Not this time.
Though you tried.
Oh.
You have to believe in something
for spells to work.
You have to believe in something
for tarot to tell you anything.
And tarot will never tell you
what you want to hear.
Maybe, just maybe, you should listen
to what you don’t.
Oh.
Not a scream.
A question.
Who am I now?
Why do I keep ending up here?
Why is nothing
the way I pictured it?
Can I ever get back
to the version of myself
I actually recognized?
No.