Thanks to everyone who emailed/checked in with me over the past week+. I wasn’t sure if I would post anything about this, but I think I will make short mention of what occurred. Last Monday morning I was told my ex-boyfriend committed suicide. It was an intense, life-rattling shock to say the least. Although we haven’t been together for several years, he was my first real relationship and the man who moved with me to Arizona. I was not able to stay on good terms with him until recently, when we had a very nice phone conversation on my birthday. He was 31.

It was the first time I ever felt palpably, physically, another person’s absence. Compounding the guilt was a long poem from my manuscript in which—you guessed it—an ex-lover takes his own life, written about 8 or 9 months ago. I used details of that break-up in the poem. It felt uncomfortably prophetic in retrospect.

For several days I wasn’t capable of functioning on a level of language. I’m coming back to the world now. But it’s a different place than when it left me.