I won’t lie. That’s a hard word to say sometimes.
I wish I lived in a culture that used the same word to mean both hello and goodbye. It’d make it easier, wouldn’t it?
I’m saying hello now because the last post I made was Goodbye. And it was me saying goodbye to my mother. More than a month ago. Saying goodbye sucks. When my kids leave to go back to their own lives. When I hang up the phone with my father now. When a friend I’ve waited a long time to see leaves again. I hate that word. That strangely cheerful sounding, heart-wrenching, chillingly lonely word.
Goodbye.
And yet, having said goodbye to the woman I loved most in this world, somehow it’s been even harder to say hello again to all of you. Maybe it’s because it feels like everything I say echoes in a hollow space. (As a poet, I appreciate that hello and hollow rhyme so well…) But I’m saying hello now because I know there is more to be done here. I have plans for National Poetry Month in April that include this blog. So I will say the word that, strangely, begins with a syllable that describes where I sometimes feel I am stuck.
Hello.
Two words, so very different in construction, not at all alike in sound,
So very difficult to say.
Hello
By Michelle Garren Flye
A whisper of a word over an abandoned grave—
soft breezes blow spring grasses around
and I am searching for redemption.
Courage, the wind whispers, try to be brave,
don’t hesitate, reach for the crown
and your place in life with strengthen.
But in the end, I am naught but a slave,
helpless and a bit of a letdown—
even if I have your attention.
Hello is too much, I can’t do it, I say,
my face marked by an anguished frown,
Goodbye hurt too much; hello is no fun.

Hello, from me. Sometimes I forget to smile. 🙂 Selfie by Michelle Garren-Flye.