Today’s post is the first from our submission request for posts on loss.  Seanna Tucker, is a freelance writer and blogger living in St. Louis. Here she shares a poem on her personal loss, which was originally posted on her tumblr. Enjoy and don’t forget  to submit your thoughts, words and pictures about loss.

53
You always told me
It would be your 50’s
And something toxic
Like cancer

You either prepared me
Or jinxed me

Grief comes in spurts
Like geisers
From your home state

Huge shuttering sobs
I seek shelter
Find temporary salvation
In occasional laughter
And old pictures

Then I’m Mt. St. Helens
Bound to burst again
Long overdue

When I find old ticket stubs
Father-Daughter Movie Dates
Things you saved

Things I saved
Old voicemails starting
“Hey Baby Girl” or “Darlin’”
In that southern and yet Californian
Drawl that could only be yours

Things I didn’t know
You saved
old Wedding pictures
From a failed marriage
With your daughter’s Mother

Handwritten notes from a
10-year-old one-time
step-daughter
My sister

I could fill
The Library at Alexandria
with what I didn’t – don’t – know

It’d be filled with
things that are lost
And I would sit on top