Ashes

I lost two dreams this week.

Each one gripped
heart meat, made lungs heave
for oxygen’s tangerine burst.
It is always you -

from before you were birds -
perched on leaving’s ledge,
your dyed autumn hair a jolt of life
so disparate from when chemo had scalped you
and greyed every hair that grew back.

Somewhere between doubt and a dream
I woke up.
My eyes rained solitude.
Held a mirror to my gluttonous misery.

I have been eating my loneliness again.

Empty
stomach consumes
hollow syllables that taste most like guilt
after the lipstick wears off.

The day you died there was unrelenting
sun, a relief
from winter’s aftermath.
I stepped outside with just a t-shirt on. Nothing

about it seemed real.
They cashed my check and burned your body.

I furied your ashes
room to room, tried to fit you in spaces
I’d punctured and fed
in darkness. My guilt was born without eyes.
Which is to say:
so were your ashes.

In some dreams, I crouch in corners
and eat both.

Hillary Smith-Maddern is a proud cat mom and collector of dilapidated plants. Her favorite things include cats, coffee, cobblestone streets, and the crisp, blank pages of a writing notebook. She resides in Holyoke, MA.When she’s not writing, you can find her teaching, hiking a mountain, or seeking out her latest adventure. Some of her work has been featured in As It Ought to Be Magazine and Coneflower Cafe.