Nowhere to Go

She leaned back in the beige chair,

the fabric looking like it would sand the skin right off my arms.

'Grief,' she said, with that tilt of her head,

'is just love with nowhere to go.'

I looked at the spider plant on her desk,

its leaves turning brown and curling like dead fingers,

and thought about the way water just sits in a bucket

until it turns stagnant and green.

It isn't love anymore once it’s been sitting

in the dark for three years.

It’s just a weight. It’s a stone in the shoe.

It’s the smell of a room that hasn't been aired out.