burial

I get on a plane

To the other side of the world

And something touches me 

On the inside 

When the recording says—

“Be sure to adjust your own mask

Before helping others.”

That we humans saw fit

That we needed this reminder

In case of life or death 

Every time we get on a plane 

While in another plane

Bombs are being dropped on homes

And hospitals full of people 

Just trying to make it another day

Just trying to give their kids

A life in this impossible world

That keeps showing them

Despite their best efforts that

They don’t matter enough 

We watch quiet from our 

White washed coffins

While they dig unmarked graves

For unrecognizable human bodies 

For their friends and sisters and babies

We turn on our white noise fans

In our white walled apartments 

That we are not afraid of burying us alive 

We wash our kids white feet 

And don’t let them see the news

And who do we think we are

That we deserve any better

That we have anywhere to call home

That we have not been left alone 

And who the hell do we think we are

To say they don’t matter enough?

This too is an unmarked grave, 

A death, not worthy of burial

— olivia gwyn

rocky shore

It’s the way that you are always coming home
To me and I to you

It’s the way you are gentle with me and it is music 
To my ears the way you come to me 

Like the ripples on the lake to the shore, relentlessly, easily, 
Like you’d do it till the water runs out

Till I am worn down by the kiss of your lips
On my rocky shore 

— olivia gwyn

I see you

 

I see you laugh down

The throats of women who have seen

Hell in their husbands eyes

I hold my breath as 

You put on sheep’s clothing and call

God’s temple not good

I watch you build an

Altar for them not realizing 

You are burning yourself 

How long will the blood

Of your daughters cry out to you

From a weary earth 

How long will the wolves 

Go home with the sheep keeping them

Silent, slaughtered at home 

It keeps me up at 

Night, waiting for the sun to come

For it to be safe

To even come home

16 again

 

The bats are flying through the dusk 

Like they’re running from something 

And I am 16 again on the way home /

18 and thinking of a boy I never loved /

I am 23 and my legs stick to the seat

The seasons come and go and bring up old aches 

They never go away but sometimes they’re closer to the surface 

As the indigo night reaches out towards the setting sun 

Always a hand’s breadth too late

I run my feet through the wet grass 

I am 7 and I am in love

With the earth and all it offers of itself to me

Year after year

Who could’ve dreamt of such a thing? 

running out

Does one ever run out of things to write about?

There are not so many things in my life

There are small things

The quiet of the lake when I go by myself

There are the loud car rides with my sister when we sing

There are the evenings when I sit on our bed and listen to his music

There are all the smiley faces I draw in the margins

There is the library, my bangs blowing in my face, that cloud,

These boots, and the hum of my tires on the road before dusk

There is this skin spread like butter over this muscle and bones

There are the back rubs and hot and cold showers and, always, there are the dishes

It is a small thing, this life

It is a symphony of significance 

Mostly not like a symphony at all

I sometimes wonder if I will–

Run out of things to write about

If you will get bored of me

And my small things

If so, I do not mind

I have these arms around me 

This skin and bones for now

To soak up the sun

These hands for working

And resting and sowing 

Love like a garden

I have the dirt and the sky and the sun

All around me

I have a laughter all my own and my painted chipped nails

and I do not mind at all

I have someone(s) who will still love me

Without my poetry

And isn't that a kind of poetry

All on it's own?

— olivia gwyn

finding

Sometimes I find myself

Waiting for you

For your kingdom to come here

Other times, I find you 

Through the lime zest

And the orange peel scent

Fresh on my hands

I find you in the

Bruises on my shins

The split in my knuckle

And the clean hair dripping down my back

I find you in my 

Husbands t-shirt when it is wet

With my own grief

I find you in my mirror

Where I am met by my familiar

Bleary eyed, swollen face,

Made by you, who does all things well

I see your kingdom clearly in the dark

In the laughter around the kitchen table,

In all our friends serving themselves food 

And spilling drinks on the counter and laughing and cleaning it up and forgetting 

I see you in the 

Flowers on the windowsill,

The leftovers sent to college apartments in cheap Tupperware

And the notes left by the coffee pot

I hear you in the silence in the living room

Between old friends

I find you in the remembering and the forgetting

In the hounds' ears and the music turned up 

And windows down and my cheeks hurting from smiling

I see it in the faces I see

Every day

I see how you see me 

It makes me miss you sometimes

But I remember 

I am not waiting for you to be with me

I am not waiting to be loved

I see 

Your kingdom come

Like the dawn every morning

So sure

I don't even have to think about it

Like the whipping of sugar and cream 

Makes the fluffy beautiful cloud

Like a surprise every time

Like the breath from my open mouth

Makes a smoke signal

In the cold night

Like you keep rearing your 

Beautiful, glorious, kind, unexpected 

Head at every turn

Showing me how you are good and tender and with me

How you did everything to make it this way

To be so close, in the midst of me

Your kingdom is here

It is Wednesday

I'm sitting on my bed

Do you not perceive it?

– olivia gwyn

I am thinking about my childhood friends

I am thinking about my childhood friends

And how I was never told how or when 

To say goodbye

More specifically, 

    I am thinking of you

No one tells you what to do with your childhood best friends after they go 

What to do with all those memories 

The sleepovers and couch sits

The wheezing laughter in the car and the fights 

No one ever told me to tell you 

How much I love(d) you

And think about you and how I can’t stop

While it wouldn’t have been weird

Did I ever tell you

     “I love you”?

I’m sure I did a thousand times,

    But I can’t remember a single one

Do you know I still do?

    Either way, I don’t believe you

I still have stories I want to tell you

    Like, I just want to hear your laugh

And I still dream about you and your brothers 

    Is this normal? What is wrong with me?

Should I call my doctor and ask,

    "When should I expect to recover?"

And I know the space where you were

Has been gone a long time

But it’s still an empty space 

And you’re still my best friend

    When I was 6

    And 11

    And 15

    And 20

And some days I still miss you

Like a child

Like I’m homesick for the way it used to be

– olivia gwyn