i wrote this poem the day after he passed and rewrote it at least ten times. i tried spinning it as a story of acceptance. a story of love. a story what next. but no matter how hard i tried, it remained a story of some world shattering loss. i’d never really experienced this sort of pain before and found it so hard to articulate just how much I felt. fifteen years & nine months. his entire life, but really, a blip of my own.

i still do not know if I’ll ever really be able to put into words what Levi meant to me. how i never felt so happy to see someone. how i loved every ‘annoying’ part of having a pet. i don’t think I’ll ever be the same person i was when Levi was alive, and in this year, i’ve come to find that that’s fine.

---

I am alone in the middle of the garage, screwdriver

in hand, tissues

covering my feet,

disassembling his kennel

because it doesn’t make sense to keep it there and

even if I don’t sell it, another could certainly use it

so I might just donate it.

I slowly take out each screw and wonder

what it is I’m doing and if maybe

I should stop because        maybe

he’ll come back and          maybe

it’s just a red herring

and this is all a great lesson about

companionship.

But I don’t stop because

all four walls collapse

and timber covers blackened blankets and

the screwdriver joins the tissues on the floor

and I learn that you can cry so hard your head hurts and

no amount of Panadol or Nurofen can stop it–

so I just sit beside the taken apart kennel and remember

some time ago it wouldn’t make sense for me to ever own a kennel

because Levi didn’t exist, and

that past is just like my present

     so if I’ve lived this all before       

why am I still crying so hard that my head hurts?