I was sitting on my fence post,
Chewing some bubble gum.
Playing with my yo-yo.
When along came Hermy the Wormy,
And he was thiiiis big.
And I said,
“Hermy!? What’s up with you, man!?”
And he said,
“Duh, I just ate a bug.”

my first memories of you are from
when we lived together when we were
young. we would be power rangers
and pokemon and a number of other
things. that was the summer your sister
broke her leg on the trampoline -
scaring us from climbing on top.
we were afraid of sharks in the pool.
clear water to the bottom, but we
were scared of the monsters we couldn't see.
no matter how many times we looked,
we couldn't shake the idea that something
was out to get us. wanted to hurt us.

I was sitting on my fence post,
Chewing some bubble gum.
Playing with my yo-yo.
When along came Hermy the Wormy,
And he was thiiiiis big.
And I said,
“Hermy!? What’s up with you, man!?”
And he said,
"Duh, I just ate a cat.”

you moved away that year.
you left for florida and took your
sister with you. you were gone for years.
in that time, she came to visit me.
she told me you were fine.
i heard from your mother that you
were struggling in school -
her straight A student,
crumbling before her eyes.
i didn't know what happened.

I was sitting on my fence post,
Chewing some bubble gum.
Playing with my yo-yo.
When along came Hermy the Wormy,
And he was thiiiiiis big.
And I said,
“Hermy!? What’s up with you, man!?”
And he said,
“Duh, I just ate a dog.”

you graduated top of your class.
you left your house for reasons i
didn't find out about until months
later. you moved back here, back
into that old house, pretending to
be the innocent boy you were.
the boy that hated to smoke ****.
the boy that drank his summer away
and regretted it.
you were the boy that let his girl get away.

I was sitting on my fence post,
Chewing some bubble gum.
Playing with my yo-yo.
When along came Hermy the Wormy,
And he was thiiiiiiis big.
And I said,
“Hermy!? What’s up with you, man!?”
And he said,
“Duh, I just ate a car.”

but we both know that wasn't who you are.
not deep down, anyway.
that boy that cried to me on my couch
gave me half-truths and spun stories
until i didn't know which way was up.
i told you that i was ****** up now.
i told you exactly what i did, and you
told me you'd done the same.
but what i didn't know, was that one
of my worst nightmares, is what you'd
become for someone else.

I was sitting on my fence post,
Chewing some bubble gum.
Playing with my yo-yo.
When along came Hermy the Wormy,
And he was thiiiiiiiis big.
And I said,
"Hermy!? What’s up with you, man!?”
And he said,
“Duh, I just ate a whale!”

when everyone found out the truth,
you fled the country.
when everyone found out the truth,
you left us all behind to
deal with your messes.
when everyone found out the truth,
i was the only one left
seeing sharks spin circles in my swimming pool,
swim circles in my heart.

I was sitting on my fence post,
Chewing some bubble gum.
Playing with my yo-yo.
When along came Hermy the Wormy,
And he was thiiis big.
And I said,
“Hermy!? What’s up with you, man!?”
And he said,
"Duh, I just burped!”

i mentioned your name to your mom for the first time since it happened.
i know it made her sad,
but things need to be said.
she will never run from this.
not successfully.
she will always be left picking your brain off the walls,
off the ceiling, out of the carpet.
fragments of your skull left shattered in her hands,
like the rest of her life.
i think the amount of red in that room drained her life of color from then on.
she could move a thousand times and never leave that home.
i could say this a thousand times but you'd never hear it.
some things are pointless, especially after time.  
i hope you never realize what it's like to get a group of your family to clean up after your messes,
even after death.

they used to tell me that i try too hard to be grown up.
i'm always questioning, calculating, planning.
walking in shoes too big for my feet,
and then wondering why i trip.
sometimes i feel like i can't help it when i
fall
so
hard,
but then i remembered that i forgot to tie the laces.
i remember that i live in metaphors.
making excuses and avoiding the present.
i try so hard to prepare for the future
that i forget to fix what's happening now,
or even to be happy with it.
i don't remember to feed my cat because
i'm too stressed trying to figure out
how to pay for her next bag.
i forgot my "see you later"
because i'm choking on "goodbye."
i need you to help me grip onto
what's here and what's now.
i need you to hold my hand.
please don't forget that i need you,
even when i don't know how to say it.

i don't know what my father sounds like when he laughs,
laughs where his sides are splitting and tears are in his eyes.
i only know his grin, his slight chuckle.
honestly, i hardly remember his voice;
something about a southern drawl
gently dabbed on syllables
spit out between the touch of nicotine, wrapped
in paper, to his lips.
i know the clothes that i wear mimic
his choice in clothes, somehow.
i know he will not walk me down the aisle,
and this is my decision.
this is my decision, and it will break my heart.
it will break my heart only
because it will break his,
like genetics somehow link emotion
across generations.
i cannot let him run my life,
like pretending to own a car that
isn't in his name;
borrowed from the person who
washes it gently, details the inside,
maintains its running parts.

turning children into property,
it's like trying to take a house that
you used to live in, years and years ago,
but forgot you had the keys to.
you test the locks, and when the door welcomes you
in for the first steps across a threshold
you call it "home" again.
you forget that there is a family on the couches.
a mother cleaning the kitchen.
a brother fixing the shudders.
the house has moved on,
but cannot bear to close its door to you.

this is our relationship.
this is our dynamic.
it has taught me that it hurts to tell him no.
it is expected for him to not care what hurts.
it has taught me how to run from guilt and shame,
destroying past and future in fits of
self-destructive rage,
just to forget the things i've done
or are happening to me.
it's taught me how it feels for a heart to break
from forgetting pieces of someone it loves.

but this hasn't taught me how to fix it,
and i don't think he knows how to, either.

i wanted to tell you that i loved you. really, i did.
i wanted to tell you that, when i looked at you, i choked on the words and promises i couldn't self-induce myself to *****.
i wanted to tell you that the curve of your guitar under your hands made me question if you would hold my body the same.
i wanted to tell you that you're the only one that made me smell like summertime.
i wanted to tell you that things were going wrong, i swear.
i wanted to tell you that i started to drown those words because you made me not want to say them anymore.
i wanted to tell you that i did not kiss that boy and i did not **** the other.
i wanted to tell you that i didn't move on, i found someone to find my corpse.
i wanted to tell you that i fell in love with him purely by accident.

i want you to know that you're the one who let this go.
i want you to know that i said those words; you're the one that took them back.
i want you to know that sometimes words cannot be erased from hearts, even if you erased it from your walls.
i want you to know that you were not the only one, and sometimes i am sorry for that.
i want you to know that you're trying too hard to forget me, that you're only making this worse.
i want you to know that you were a "failed attempt i never could forget," but a failed attempt all the same.
i want you to know that i probably think about this more than you do, but i feel less than you ever did.
i want you to know that i did more with him than i'll ever admit, and i don't regret that in the slightest. i gave him everything you didn't want.
i want you to know that he never found my corpse, but he saved me all the same.

after a night with you, people began to ask questions.
color blossomed on my skin in shades of purples and red,
interrupted with the occasional broken-blood-vessel lines
where you tried to sink your point into my skin,
bas relief engravings into my superficial self.
my lips are cracked and bleeding,
and my eyes are ringed in black.
whispers slip past me,
ghosts dancing along hallways about the stories my body told.
the only people who know what happened were the people in the room.
love and hate look a lot alike,
lust and violence practically synonymous.
it's all just semantics, after all.

our first kiss was a promise,
a promise that shouldn't have been made in the first place.
it was just something we'd mentioned, wanted,
but never thought to follow through with.
it was meant to soothe the pain between us,
your body and my heart, or maybe the other way around.
but in the end, we were left with nothing
but the cigarette smell on your jacket
and the person i needed to crawl back to.

our second kiss was commisery,
both of us scrubbed raw and bleeding.
ironic, how we just rubbed salt in the wounds.
they say it makes it better but it always just hurts.
to keep the ***** out of our mouths,
we just kept them busy,
like somehow our state of mind would care
that we were in public and that shame doesn't mean
a lack of composure.

our third kiss was a compromise,
a final pinky-swear that maybe we won't off ourselves after all
[but promise you'll leave me a note if you do].
somehow we traded off pain,
and i shouldered your stories while you brushed off mine.
i told you i'd try to get it together,
you told me you'd try not to fall in love.
hopefully you kept your end of the bargain,
because at least one of us needed to.