Breaking Up For Dummies
Dear [name of ex-to-be],
There is no easy way
to break the news to you,
[blundered attempt at tact].
I just want you to know
[lame excuse or reason],
but I really am
[empty apology]
I will always treasure
[Hallmark card memories],
and I hope we can still
[caveat just in case
new relationship bombs].
Yours faithfully,
[your name]
Reprieve
two fistfuls of green on the ground
gleaming with growth, glowing with green
in a shade richer than the moss,
not buried today by freak frost
(there will always be tomorrow
and its patient inclemencies),
obscured instead by leaf litter
so the eye might almost miss them,
watching for stray branches and logs
and all the while still wondering
if these blades have thrust themselves out
far too soon to survive, to thrive
*Ian Chung is Fiction Editor at The Cadaverine and reviewer at Sabotage. He also edits Eunoia Review.
