Duality

Another poem about addiction

Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash

What greater duality is there but here,
and not here.
Breathing,
and not breathing.
The possibility of seeing the one you love,
and never seeing them again?

It encompasses light and dark,
life and death,
breath and stillness,
possibility and the closure of possibility.

It’s growth, change, hope
versus stasis. It’s hope
versus the obliteration of hope.

It’s Ruby’s life before February 7th,
and after.
It’s Ruby before February 7th,
and after.

It’s the Ruby of the Christmas party
several years ago,
standing in the doorway between
my kitchen and the hallway,
when she said,

“I know we share that… both of our kids…”
are tangled up in drugs,
she meant.
I’m sure she didn’t
say it right out
like that.