In March of 2005, Dad packed his things
and left the house that he raised me in.
I didn’t notice anything missing, except for
a black and white photo album off the mantle
and the lounge chair he slept on for two years.

His new home, a renovated split-level,
was empty like an abandoned barn:
beautiful in its own tragic way, with
barely enough strength to keep it from
toppling over into a pile of rotted wood.

It was vacant, despite all the possessions
and bodies that lay lifeless inside the walls.

Years of silent dinners amplified by echoes
of awkward tiptoeing and closing doors
to hide the things nobody knew how to say.

I mixed liquid nitrogen
With my *** juices
Now I'm cool as ****

Interested in interesting intellectuals
Bringing bacon back, bread-bringing *******
Alliterating alliterative allocutions allowing abusive acronyms

For goodness and badness
And for some ugliness
Here’s the facts and I’ll lay them down right:
I’m a ******* sorcerer
And I don’t finish lists

Irony in the ironical first-person
I left someone behind when they told me to
And now I’m better off,
Know this poem’s for you.
Every time I see your face, I really hope you’re doing well
But deep in my mind I know that nothing’s changed
And you’re still the same, as I’m trying to change
To be a better person than I was when we met
But it’s something that you never noticed, yet
Something inside of me says we’re polar
Opposites and what really happened
Was for the best, for both of us
So I still keep in touch with
Friends around you
And I hope secretly
That you fall in
Unending mercy
And that I’m wrong.

I found your apologies along with a lighter in my pocket
the night I burned you away
Both were deep down in there.
Below the forgiveness
It was squeezed between the pieces of your broken promises
Collaged into the parts of my shattered heart
I found them folded into love letters
And engraved into the anxiety marks your lies left in me
I dug them out of the hole your deceiving left in the back of my mind
Buried right next to suspicion
I found your explanations hid beneath the mental memories of teeth
They never quite fit together
I saw them in the picture show behind my eyes
I’ve recklessly recreated to many times
I felt your callused pleads for forgiveness on my fingertips
after I pricked my pointer on your spikey “I didn’t do its”
I slipped on your confessions
nearly drowned in what could’ve been
Luckily, I realized before it was too late, that water is infinitely too deep
As is the pools of sympathy I had for you but never had for me
I used that lighter to smoke a cigarette that was packed down as well as your stories
You always exhaled like a script for the movie I’ve seen to many times called
“Please feel bad for me”
I found your I’m sorrys on the bottom my shoe
after I kicked the crap out of my “welcome to walk on me” mat
I threw away and replaced with a banner reading “please don’t come back soon”
I can’t claim I don’t know but I can say this feeling is new
Never thought you had what it takes to make me give up on you

the priest, whose tomato face looked like it might explode under collar tension,
gave the valedictory at the friday night execution
the yellow-toothed, combover'd serial killer buckled in electric chair
kept staring at the door, expecting an ally to crawl in late but not too late
the mother of one of the victims rattled on about
how she didn't care that the killer had an allergy to the anesthetic used
in lethal injection      he's going to die either way     what's it matter?
buzz of fly    crack of rolled program against empty folding chair
(yes, there were programs, and whoever laid them out knew their typography)
buzz of fly raised upward, toward the black, magma-cooled ceiling
audience chin up, pupils circled fly as the priest droned on
about everlasting life like a Paul Simon song from his youth
like a catcher's mitt from his youth like a youth from his youth
the boyfriend of one of the mothers of one of the victims
said he was hungry    pancakes sound good, don't they?
I love it when syrup gets on the bacon, you know? love that.
a pudgy guard with bleary eyes and 12 a.m. shadow
rolled his index finger   lowered his brow, telling the
priest to wrap it up   so the priest wrapped it up
by reading the names of the victims
Tara Barnes, 17, Rachel Lythe, 10, Julie McPherson, 13,
Serenity Strongman, 15, and Mary Beth Williamson, 13
the priest said something about judgement as
the boyfriend of the mother of one of the victims
took another swat at the fly                       missed
any last words? the priest asked
where's James? the killer asked, he was supposed to be here
did you guys give him the right time?
the guard nodded to a lab coat by a black box
then a hiss then a hum then an inhale
the first jolt of alternating current for

instantaneous brain death

hard to tell if they succeeded in that
for the second jolt came only a moment
later    this shock's aim to fatally damage
the internal organs, overstimulate the heart
and the killer's face looked like a horse's leg
then an exhale then a hum then a hiss
and the killer's face looked like the crinkled
skinmemory of a cicada
it was late   most of the best restaurants already closed
but we could go to that diner off 63rd, the boyfriend
of the mother
of one of the victims, said

im trying so hard to
remember what
it
feels like
to still be in love

im trying so hard to
remember the
times
when you
smiled and laughed

and im trying much too hard
to forget the times you
cried and i did not
comfort you
or care to comfort you
or the times when you said
"i love you"
and i replied with an
indifferent
"i know"

but most of all
im trying oh so hard to
fall back in love with you

If you come as softly
As the wind within the trees
You may hear what I hear
See what sorrow sees.

If you come as lightly
As threading dew
I will take you gladly
Nor ask more of you.

You may sit beside me
Silent as a breath
Only those who stay dead
Shall remember death.

And if you come I will be silent
Nor speak harsh words to you.
I will not ask you why now.
Or how, or what you do.

We shall sit here, softly
Beneath two different years
And the rich between us
Shall drink our tears.

The rain would usually bother me
but today I'm tired
and sickness and intoxication are both wearing off
so each little droplet does nothing to phase me
from my half awake daydreaming state
staring into others faces,
just aware enough to turn when they turn.
Most days I would study each line-
the smiles, the wrinkles, the way their hair parts
just trying to understand each of them.
Today I'm looking just to look at something moving
so I don't look at the concrete
and fall asleep, bored.

The three other classes on this end of campus
are each let out early
and file through this bottleneck
quietly enough that I only notice the last few as they walk by.
She looks up from the ground and sees me.
Saying nothing, she smiles in a way that makes me wonder if she's looking past me,
I look, there's nothing there.
I smile back for a second, as well as I can.

Later I catch her smile again from a crowd in the hall.

I stop for a second,
not physically, I keep waking.
but, I keep my eyes there, smiling.
she's already looked away, so I don't worry.
It comes harder to me today- studying a face,
and her's is one I've never been able to figure out,
so I give up and keep walking.

Am I a friend to her,
or something more?
Am I what I wanted to be
years ago-
A thought in her head before she falls asleep?

Or am I just broken because I think this hard about a simple smile?