april is antonymous of you. (napowrimo 2021: day one)

I'm in love with the title. I keep re-reading it. This read as even more abstract to me than some of your other poems, and I think that made it that more alluring too.

"i don’t remember the world before you,
and i don’t want to learn the world after you;
in between i'll exist - "

- My favorite lines. I can't seem to place a name or give substance as to who or what you're referring to. It seems more like an aura, or something intangible.

I see April as more than a month here, more than the start of spring. I feel like it's indicating the parts in us that are still thawing from winter. We're messy, muddy, the rainfall is heavy and our emotions are thick clouds that obscure everything. But then, this presence comes and lets us take a moment to breathe. It heals us. Maybe this is a reflection on revisiting trauma, and the times when we are bandaged, though we still have to face it year after year or whenever memories invade us. There's no one we can point to and say "you saved me". It's more this idea or notion of being comforted in some intimate way that no one else knows about. Perhaps April is the anniversary of the trauma, or loss of someone. And you mourn them in the same ways. Re-reading makes me think that this is an introspective look at grieving someone, and the weight of emotions while doing so. That others have expected you to move on, but you can't fathom, or don't want to live in a reality, where you don't remember their existence. There's that dissonance in trying to process their presence vs absence.

Added to my favorites!