By James Diaz

we thought of all the gardens

we had never put into the ground

we thought of the daily breaking down

into smaller parts till the whole thing

could fit into our mouths

we thought of the last time we had been happy

and we cried because it had been so long

we knew this road was never really meant to be abandoned

only walked upon harder

in every direction

we could not remember what it meant to be loved

and held and understood

we were walkers in an entirely inexhaustible way

configured for this dark

our light was immanent

without / sun

from the ocean’s bottom

we created a way to see despite our achy-born blindness

we thought of the garden we built from smaller things

than we could measure

we remembered that happiness couldn’t be held

or pulled from pockets

or like a root from winter ground

our feet were starry hearts worn down

and our love was never gone

it was just too close for us to see.

James Diaz is the author of This Someone I Call Stranger (2018, Indolent Books) and editor of the forthcoming anthology What Keeps us Here: Songs from The Other Side of Trauma. In 2016 he founded the online literary arts and music journal Anti-Heroin Chic to provide a platform for often unheard voices, including those struggling with addiction, mental illness and Prison/confinement. He resides in upstate New York, in between balanced rocks and horse farms. He has never believed in anything as strongly as he does the power of poetry to help heal a shattered life.

Published by academyoftheheartandmind

We are a literary magazine run by John Page, Thomas Page, and Jessica Ricks.

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