Elegy For Us​

“I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.”
             —Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H.

Every morning I am in mourning.
But I am not mourning you,
rather, the loss of “us”. The loss
of what I thought I knew so well.
The loss of sweet smiles and warmth.

You consume my mind. All the things
you said, and all that you didn’t. I still
wear your sweatshirts to bed and I still
want to wear your name around my neck.
No amount of freedom will get us clean.

I don’t want to be clean of you, though.
I want to revel in your sheets, and your
laugh, your lion’s mane, your tiger’s eyes,
and heavy sighs. How silly of me to think
we had it all, living my life inside a dream.

I will always want to be the starring role
in your heart— you were in mine, afterall.
You just couldn’t give me that, and I do
understand— you’re lucky I’m good like that.
But do you know how much it’s been hurting?

Oh, the things I would give just to be with you
forever. I thought we agreed on forever. What
changed? I’m living dead, now, but I still have
the smallest hope that you will one day revive me.
I feel you are the only one who truly can.

---

Mary Binninger​
is a senior Creative Writing major at SUNY Purchase College. She is a lover of reading, writing, cats, and glitter. Mary has had poems previously published in Submissions Magazine, Gutter Mag, and Absynthe Gallery.

---