january found me breaking my resolutions like breathing,
like you always do, no one ever does it like they meant to.
january found me trying to tie to heart myself to somebody else
like body to a brick, sinking, always sinking.
you only ever liked my mouth closed, you only like me smiling.
silent. teeth gritted into a grin.
february never found me.
salvation does not come from bottles or books or other people.
trust me, i’ve tried.
march found me writing, bleeding.
did you know that there is a word for “soul” in almost every language?
correlation does not equal causation, i know this,
but i like to think this means our hearts all beat in the same tempo.
i like to think that we can all build our compassion on common ground.
i have always found poetry to be a good way of slowing life down
into understandable pieces.
this is why we write about tragedy, i think, to make it easier to swallow.
so cities have become synonymous with gunshots.
we pray for paris and orlando and dallas and turkey;
we pray until our mouths go dry.
april found me burying my childhood in the backyard,
a pretending it didn’t ******* burn.
my mother plays purple rain until the vinyl warps,
until it echoes around our house like a catacomb.
her record collection is beginning to look sort of like a graveyard.
my mom says that older you get a lot of things begin to look like graveyards.
when prince died, he was younger than my father was,
but i don’t like to think about that.
may found me rewiring my nervous system
around my systemic nervousness
because i don’t call it anxiety because then if did, i might have anxiety
and *******, it’s only funny after the fact.
may found me trying, bleeding, failing at scrubbing myself
out of my own skin.
june found me sitting at the dining room table
in the pale afternoon light, trying fit my mouth around
the word “tumor” without choking.
my dad keeps saying, “it’s benign”
sipping holy water and brushing his hair down onto his forehead
like he’s hiding, all my life he’s never ever gone into hiding.
even when it was easier not to be himself,
he stood tall.
i always thought all my friend’s parents were so young,
but now i focus in on my father’s grey hair,
think about how in twenty years he might not be there.
july found me having reincarnations of this conversation
with myself on repeat.
i spent summer 2016 drowning, 900 ft above sea level,
because i couldn’t get my head on straight
and no one noticed mostly because i didn’t want them to
and when i blinked it was me and my thoughts in room
and it was suffocating.
june swallowed me up and spit me back out,
july played a symphony of my ribcage
and let the blood soak into the earth.
august found me saying goodbye
until my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth,
i’m told next year will taste the same.
we carry each other inside ourselves, like time capsules and russian dolls.
we are the reflection of the people we love most and the people we hate most.
we don’t grow up we just get lost and found.
september found me eighteen, but also somehow eighteen and eighty.
september found me hiding under my bed and dragged me out
even though i’d made friends
with all the monsters who lived there.
even though i knew all the demons by name.
september found me wanna-be fearless
and trying.
october found me eating my heart out.
truth is my heart is restless, breathless, willing to get tangled up
in anyone who seems willing.
see, i realized last april bleeding into may
that i could argue with you for the rest of my life and be so ******* happy.
see, i decided last june that that didn’t mean ****.
see, last october i didn’t even know you like i know you.
see, last october my heart was like this, too, indecisive,
see, see, see,
november found me waking up to a country
that no longer felt like it could belong to me.
november found my body an apology, my skin a statement,
and my family tree a liability.
november found me every morning waking up in a country that hates me
and sitting down across the table for thanksgiving with people
who voted for a man who makes unsafe in my own skin,
bigotry growing between the hedges and yard signs of my own neighborhood
like i’m looking at my neighbors and wondering which one of them
thinks that this country isn’t mine like it’s theirs.
breaking bread and the american promise,
breaking bones.
december found me drinking white wine out of plastic cups
in someone’s basement and trying to pretend
that you don’t make my skin spark,
make my heart feel like the fourth of july.
and sometimes i still find i am looking for you in everyone else.
looking back at 2016