poetry

from the inside

Sunday Scribblings

This is how it went.

I wanted to say a red goodbye. A crystal goodbye. A goodbye hanging from the rafters of an old cabin in the woods, smelling of cedar and damn rainforest. A goodbye echoing off the silence of an underpass. Goodbyes the size of snowflakes, goodbyes the color of air on a hot day.

I wanted to say goodbye, and again, and again. You didn’t let me.

Instead, you fought. Brought me candles with flames, tall, and bright as the moon. Brought me mirrors in which to see myself. There are no goodbyes in moons and mirrors. Goodbyes in flames are flippant, final, but goodbyes in glass are generous. Giving.

This is how it went. But it didn’t have to go this way.

It could have been a brutal goodbye. The kind that tears up lungs and throats and insides and then wrecks your paper heart. The kind that tosses aside apologies like confetti. A party on your back. Chipping off bone from your spine like roots pushing up a sidewalk made of brick. From the inside.

That’s what you do. From the inside. A crystal goodbye echoing cedar smelling of rafters the color of someone leaving. Someone. Anyone. As if there is some definition of what that is: leaving. Left. Going. Gone. As if I can write these words and let you know what I mean when I say them. As if we have some sort of understood meaning between the times that my brain decides these words, my fingers tap these keys, your eyes scan these letters. There is no way to know what words are sparking what colors of goodbye inside of you. Only inside of me.

Only goodbyes are the color of goodbyes, and very few of us will ever know what it’s like to have the roots of a tree set us free.

Published by Sinclair Sexsmith

Sinclair Sexsmith (they/them) is "the best-known butch erotica writer whose kinky, groundbreaking stories have turned on countless queers" (AfterEllen), who "is in all the books, wins all the awards, speaks at all the panels and readings, knows all the stuff, and writes for all the places" (Autostraddle). ​Their short story collection, Sweet & Rough: Queer Kink Erotica, was a 2016 finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, and they are the current editor of the Best Lesbian Erotica series. They identify as a white non-binary butch dominant, a survivor, and an introvert, and they live outside Seattle as an uninvited settler on traditional, ancestral, & unceded Snoqualmie land.

11 thoughts on “from the inside”

  1. dailypanic says:

    "Only goodbyes are the color of goodbyes, and very few of us will ever know what it's like to have the roots of a tree set you free." like a bird in flight… I get it and I like your words.

  2. Shannon says:

    You had me at "red goodbye"…very sensual.

  3. Inconsequential says:

    fun read :)
    good images.

  4. gautami tripathy says:

    This is one goodbye with lots ofhues. Had me hooked!gautamirooted.

  5. Speedy Chick says:

    A great read. Funny how colours smells and images attach themselves to our feelings. Like how the smell of a hospital can instantly bring me back to my goodbye to my Grandfather.

  6. GoGo says:

    First thought, damn. Second thought, nice hues.You certainly set the bar high here.~gg

  7. Crafty Green Poet says:

    Beautifully written and I can relate too.

  8. Waspgoddess says:

    Quite stunning use of words. A desire to hear it read aloud.

  9. Just Expressing Myse says:

    I am trying to imagine a red good-bye.I've had blue ones & some black ones.What a magnificent finish: to have the roots of a tree set you free.Thank you.Much peace to youMy post is at: http://blogjem.com

  10. Janie Hickok Siess, says:

    I stand in awe. I could never write something like that. I have no imagination. I've never thought of goodbyes as having colors. Amazing.

  11. angel says:

    what a cool read!

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