growing up

    the flickering light in your dead great-grandma's closet. jesus on a cross, ceramic rib bleeding. he's too high up on the wall to reach. knees scraped from the pool. your dad's wet t-shirt. reading in the grass, your blue dress splayed around you. a dog lying belly-up. pistachio ice cream. scribbling in a notebook. lighting a match, hands shaking. mary's womb. bleating goats. bleeding gums. frogs in the backyard. a dent in your pink bedroom wall from a thrown folding chair. a text message. an accident. bare feet kicking the kitchen island. a cat scratch from calf to thigh. a spring snapping. a sore throat. the playroom at church. a basketball to the head. clawing and screaming. vomit against fur. show me. here, in the stall.

    an overdue library book. weeping in the back of the car. scissors broken in half. first of many. euthanasia. walking to the convenience store. loud cars on the highway. you should go home. holding hands as a joke. curly blonde hair. she doesn't let go. a birthday present wrapped with tinfoil. passing notes. a campfire crackling. your friend's apartment window. a creaking bed frame. falling on your bike. getting up without making a noise. a fly trap hanging from the ceiling. musty garage smell. the birds chirping when you’ve stayed up too late. a shitty golf swing. the rotting wood on the deck. sleeping on the phone.

    sucking his ring finger into your mouth, down to the knuckle. watching the same movie every day for a week. listening to the same dozen songs. a missed connection. a poem. jesus and judas. throwing up in the public bathroom. pushing your forehead against the cool shower tile until the bone is sore. doing the dishes. someone’s outdoor furniture that you will never sit at again. the space his voice takes up. the void it leaves when he's gone. a closed door. trees above the road. houses on a hill. a city you want to live in. a life you imagine. cigarette butts in a plastic bottle. looking at yourself in the mirror. keeping the drawer closed. fingernails digging into skin. sharp pain. peach juice dripping down your arm. wandering eyes. grazing fingertips. never telling a soul. wishing until death.

#90

i can smell you in the hallway, just outside of the door. you are alive somewhere, miles away, but i cannot see you. you aren’t there when i can. you’re on the wall. you’re just past me. you can’t look straight and i’m the only one that can stomach it. there’s something grounding about it, someone you love reduced to a sedated animal, so weirdly human. i’m here now. it makes no difference. so many people have told me i’m a good friend that it starts to sound like just one of those things you say to console a crying child. back inside, i’m surrounded by your stuff, left mourning a person still alive. left making your bed and tidying your things. repeating myself and beating dead horses and sobbing so hard that i can only lay, body inverted inside-out, under his breathing ceiling. this web is shared and yet only i feel it like this. we took turns, me and them, them and me, comforter and comforted. in the car, in that room, out in the yard with the barking dogs. hair wet and sweet-smelling, throat scratchy. this will change something. nothing will ever change. in the light of the television, barely-there, i face your bed with my eyes closed and i try to find the back of your head, the way i always do. it almost works.