Maybe I didn't give myself enough time to grieve but my lungs were on my sleeve and I needed recitation. When I needed CPR you gave me Care.  Protection. Respect.  when I needed mouth to mouth you opened up and give me your all.  And ive been in your debt ever since.

From the young cashier bad at math who counted the drawer wrong.  Good heart,  bad luck,  pocket pennies on her sleeve.

I take my hat off and bow my head to every mile marker that is your 81, I know you're trying to follow my journey but kitten I'm going down south, East of misery and a little bit West of the cemetery, your ice cold heart just doesn't belong, the sun is my Shepard but baby you're just a sheep, I'll love you always just not in this mid Florida heat, complete opposites in the light of the path, you chose too early, and now your set in a casket, go haunt route 66 where I might visit in a few years, I'm just a wandering soul, trying to run, you're not making it easy on me, I miss my lost son

im afraid to google your name because of all the newspaper articles about the little lost boy who never made it to graduation

My heart is a bookend.
My heart is a paperweight.
My heart is a pencil sharpener, a cd player, and superglue
My heart is an atlas
My heart is an aviator
My heart is an Appalachian
My heart is a rodeo clown, the town jester, and a fabulous cook.
My heart is a survivor.
My heart is a tornado
My heart is a lone wolf
My heart is many things, and it is always, always yours.

you still exist
in the crinkled pages of my notebook.
last autumn i dog-eared the top corners so i would find my way back.
your veins dance with the curves and loops of my
frail
frail
words.
the contours of your dreams lay in the indents of my ballpoint pens.
your fears bleed black and blue.
your voice--the raspy scratching of graphite before bed.
my sentences often sit incomplete because that's how you left--
in the middle
without warning
because you lacked a single transition.
your breath echos at the turn of every page
inhale--look back
exhale--look forward
(i can almost feel your lungs working alongside my own).
your blood runs red as i scribble across the pages--
at times i am in a frenzy, lacking control as my hands skirt along the paper.
other days, i am silent, waiting for my hand to pick up the pen
and bring you to life.

i keep telling myself that
you still exist
in the crinkled pages of my notebook
but
every time i close its covers shut,
i can't seem to find you.

i named all the holes in my walls after you and kissed each of them with my every knuckle