i didn't know you quite well
i just knew you hated
yourself
and loved disney films
and musicials

(i hate musicials and disney)

we sat at the same lunch table
2013
i remember your cotton sleeve
wiping across the corner of my left eye
because there was a storm brewing in them
and it flooded

you talked of
that boys don't know
better
and told me to stay
strong

how can someone who is not strong themselves
encourage me to do something
that they can't even triumph

you fell ill around december
or was it november?
i can't remember.
you almost followed the footsteps
of your lost nephews (two and five)
why couldn't you absorb your nutrition?
was your destiny to see the mortician?

(no.)

but you left the hilly suburbs of ohio
to go where the sand storms
and the palm trees sway
and the salty bays lay.

alex, alexandria
(defender of man)
i still remember those sleepless green eyes
filled with defeat and woe
and yards of wavy tangled brown hair
that flowed.