CALL ME BELOVED

things I left behind –
a small library of novels and classics
bought in a second-hand store so I could
ostensibly better myself – never read,
beer steins my mother bought me in germany,
a battered art portfolio from high school with
the handwriting on the front too familiar for comfort,
stacks of photographs and love notes pushing
a decade that I haven’t looked at for just as long.

something I brought with me – guilt,
like when my father told me how he paced
about the house after I left, the tears
corroborated by my mother that I avoided
with great purpose and deliberation and
hang about me now like a chandelier
above my head – delicate and beautiful
and too far beyond me to approach.