Molds

My ex-wife let mold grow on the roses
I gave her. They were for her birthday,
And she hasn't moved them from the corner
in the dining room of the apartment
we once shared. Living things seem to
waste away here, and though I'm sorry
for her and her wilted flowers, I'm not
sorry I left. She told me not to be sorry.

Today I brought her a smoothie while
she was at the hospital. I took
the stairs back down from the seventh floor,
following a trail of Sour Patch Kids left,
one by one, on the stairs by some young
hansel or gretel showing a way out
for those who might be lost here.

People often get lost in the molds of former
selves. And former apartments, like
labrynths, grow daunting as hospital
stairwells. Leaving the corners of
rooms that I miss should not hold regret,
but the phantom pains that come with
losing a limb - only to find new limbs
growing in their places, following paths
laid down by younger, more innocent minds
to prove that we were never really lost

2/8 (last stanza 7/12)