Past Tense

You are gone.

No longer here.

In fact, you are nowhere to be found.

Occupying yourself in the past tense…

It is the new way to describe you.

Unfamiliar territory,

We are forced to retrain the brain.

Occupying ourselves with the past tense…

“Remember when,” is how we begin conversations.

Rightly so, you are the center of those.

Filling ourselves with memories, while

Occupying time with the past tense…

Frozen and unable to move,

We hold tightly to the idea of you.

Building angels in your absence,

Occupying life with the past tense.

I began writing poetry in high school. As almost everyone can attest, this period in life is filled with angst, transition, hormones, and emotions you can barely understand. It is even more challenging to describe them in any way that makes sense.

Lost and confused, I turned to a white blank page. Sitting at a desk in my bedroom, my pen would begin to make sense of the world while I quietly meditated on my experiences. Without question, the practice was the best therapy I could afford. It helped me express what I found nearly impossible to say aloud. Armed with a name for my emotions, I could return to the world with all the armor I needed.

As I moved through college and into my professional and adult life, I continued writing poetry. I did so countless times to process the world around me, but I also did it without the intention of sharing my poetry with others.

After graduating from the University of Central Oklahoma, I was at a house party with some friends. With a few too many beers in my system, I started talking with a friend’s wife. Somehow, we got on the subject of poetry. Feeling brave, I told her about my practice. Digging deeper, she encouraged me to share my work with the world.

At first, I was nervous to do so. So much of what I had written were my private feelings and struggles. I wasn’t sure I was ready to bear it all for the world to read. We talked some more, and still, she encouraged me. Eventually, I concluded that there are no truly unique human experiences. To varying degrees, we all go through the same challenges. Perhaps my poetry might help those struggling feel a little less alone.

Shortly after launching my website, I began sharing my poetry with the world. I have continued to do so for fifteen years. Of all the poems I have written and shared with the world, Past Tense remains the most popular.

I have written countless poems about my brother, Lucas, who died by suicide almost ten years ago. I shared the above poem on what should have been his 25th birthday. It had grown difficult to talk about my brother in the past tense. When asked the question, “How many siblings do you have?” Do I say, “An older sister and three brothers” or do I say, “an older sister and brother, as well as a younger brother and another brother who is no longer with us?” I also found myself forgetting the sound of his voice, as well as other small things that made him a unique human being.

Instead, Lucas became a single memory built on the foundation of hundreds of other memories. Those memories were both happy and sad. They were also relegated to the past tense. We would not be creating new memories together. That truth broke my heart and sent me toward a blank white page to wrestle with that frustration.

Since choosing to share this poem with the world, nearly 500 people have read it. I would like to think that some of them turned to my words because they shared the same frustration. All I can hope is that they found what they were looking for in this simple poem. If they return to this essay, I hope they have come to terms with what it means to lose someone, and what it means to move them to the past tense.

Be good to each other,

Nathan