with

dedicated to those who sat with me in the darkness

i was sitting in the room and you were there and i was scared so scared that the walls around me shook to a sound i could no longer hear and i took my eyes out of their sockets and grasped them in my hands which were covered with mud and you didn’t turn away no you leaned in closer and said nothing in so many words that all i could feel was silence and i placed my eyes in your hands and you didn’t even flinch and i said please help me and you were there through the shaking of walls and the swallowing of sound and even though you took so many forms it was always you who watched me place my eyes back in my skull and there are so many words for healing but most of them mean love and it didn’t matter whether you called me sick or connected. when you sat with me in the darkness you didn’t sit above.

Carol Krause is a poet who writes about losing her grip. And calls it a love story. Carol’s poetry has appeared in PRISM international, Minola Review, The Fiddlehead, Best Small Fictions and Augur Magazine, among others.