Letters Without a Return Address

it’s funny to think

how 26 letters dictate our lives

yet 26 lives dictate each letter

(I write them when I’m sad)

letters to love and to God and to hope and to light and to tomorrow

and to yesterday and to darkness and to Satan and to despair,

asking “why, please, why,”

fruitlessly.

I sit here and rearrange one 26

(the other one is rather stuck)

and what used to be my universe

now sits snugly in my palm—

(but when I say “snugly”

that’s more of a memory because

there is nothing cute about a shriveled, erratic heart).

you just feel sorry.

and at every condolence, my ocean leaks a little more.

soon it will all be dripping through my fingers,

running up my sleeves,

vanishing.

a few drops left and I'll be

gone.

and the universe will sit a little straighter,

arrangements of 26.