The Endless Barrage of Thoughts, a poem

The thoughts don't start,

they're just suddenly there,

already spinning,

already mid-sentence,

like they never stopped.

A memory of your laugh

turns into how you died

turns into what if I'd called

turns into your voice

turns into nothing.

No order to it.

No first thought,

no last thought,

just a wheel

that keeps turning

without a hand on it.

I try to follow one thread...

it disappears

into another

into another

into you, gone.

Round and round.

Not building to anything.

Not landing anywhere.

Just orbiting

the same absence

from a thousand directions.

Maybe that's what grief is...

not a line

with a beginning and an end,

but a circle

I walk

forever.