pain

After: Poems About Moving On

Artwork by Quirubin Boqueo

We’re often told we only have so much energy to spend on a given thing: on work, on an argument, on a relationship. Maybe we also have a limited capacity for pain. And when we reach that limit, we just…move on. These poems, submitted by our readers, grapple with the topics of hurting and wanting not to hurt anymore.

 

Be meticulous about
What you choose
To care for.
Have a discerning palate.
Care for anything long enough
And you’ll learn to love it,
To be anchored by it—
People, old houses, your muses,
Even your pain.

—Naila Hess

 

Maybe I won’t have to look at you anymore
like everything else is just a blur.
As if every hue came to unite glistening your existence.

Maybe time won’t have to go slow anymore when you laugh,
Or when you’re too focused telling me about how your day went.

Maybe I won’t have to be bothered anymore
by my heartbeats elevating
When your skin unintentionally touches mine,
Making every inch of my hair electrify for a second.

Maybe I won’t have to tell the stars about you anymore,
Everytime only my heart would feel right,
and everything else just doesn’t.

I’m caught in a makeshift universe of mine, where nothing makes sense but my soul that aches.

But what if, I won’t have to love you anymore,
as much as I do now
At least, if the odds allow, it’ll not hurt this bad.
Perhaps, One day.

—Carmela Mendoza Ochea

 

In my perfect world,
I think less about myself and more of myself
I think of all the skills I have gained
And not alll the pounds I have to lose
I think of how two great people came together to make me
But how it is up to me to keep myself together
I appreciate my abilities
I work on them
I spend less time dreaming
And more time being the dream
I stop thinking about him
And him and him
And every other hims to whom I have given the permission to measure me
I become the measure of a woman
I turn heads
Keep mine up
Tell my thumping heart it will always jump
But I will make sure it will land safely
Be honest to myself
Stop mumbling I don’t know
Will know
Will know history
Will know science
Math
A little bit of math
But enough to measure the worth of me.

—Sapphire Thrill

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