Today I wrote I missed you for the first time
since your death in February
I reread all those poems you wrote me.
It was not easy to expose myself to myself
and declare I can't hide our past behind the metaphors
you wove effortlessly out of my nothingness and dismay.
You tamed the words like no one ever could
and insisted on loving me as if I was blind enough
to believe a poet could love without bending
down with the weight of his own heart
and despair.
Now I realize you made me feel precious, weird and noble.
( your patriotism, cigarettes and small tragedies devoured me,
diminishing the intensity of my being and I hated what I was,
you were, we could never be)
You immortalized me gloriously,
giving me everything I could never have.
It was too heavy to be your symptom.
Couldn't bear your incomprehension.
(didn't know how to be your solace
or the mother you dreamt for your own child)
But now I can say shamelessly I loved you too.
( didn't know I loved you - not as you deserved
or needed)
We are finally free, Tiger.
Life doesn't need to happen again:
your poems still make my soul tremble
with awe and beauty.
