1.
The oak trees in the park don’t seem
to mind the extra space.
Maybe they don’t like
to share their feelings.

Doctor C says that’s okay,
they might just be processing loss
in their own way.
I wish they could say something. A hole
in the ground with the imprint
of a massive hand planted
until it fell asleep, rotted,
and fell off with the numbness
of a diabetic whose children don’t visit
his door often enough
is no home for my sleeping heart.

I wanted the others to notice
the void every day it grew life
with the seedling grass,
and then the falling snow,

but they did not—

2.
When the bathtub stays filled even
As the plug has been missing
for many months already, I know
it is time to see my doctor again

before I desire a visit to the family
of partially emptied drain cleaners
I leave beneath the sink.
They help me to keep clean, but
I hate to be a bother when they look
so at peace amongst the dust
and silverfish laying still
in the dark.

She explains it is common
for the terminally lonesome to see
and hear things. She asks if I’ve been
getting enough sun, though we both
know it soon will be January.

I don’t understand why
the monarch butterflies
each year can die away from home
after months of travel,
teaching their children what to eat,
where to go
to find a way back
but my shower drain is forever
clogged—with hair

I am too young
to be losing.