I haven’t thought your name in a month, I forget when the time arrived that I stopped keeping track of how many times you crept across my mind
They say the day that moment arrives is when you’re done grieving 

Done allowing the sadness to seep in

Done letting the dead mess with you

Done living life with a ghost 

Ma’s seen multiple psychics as a way to still have you in her life 

number 4, letter A, books, pride, my voice
Regret

wishes he could still be by our side, living the happy life he led with us before it was so rudely ripped away

As ma says this I turn my head and cover my ears

The dead can’t talk

The dead can’t think 

The dead can’t wish

The dead can’t live

He says he can’t believe how much you’ve grown, your voice, your hair, your strength. He wishes he could’ve been there as you grew up

As ma says this I hold my breath and count to thirty

Thoughts of pale corpses

Thoughts of cold skin

Thoughts of heavy caskets

Thoughts of cold, January wind 

Thoughts of silence 

Ma looks over at me waiting for a response but I only briskly nod my head

The dead terrifies me, always has

Pa telling us to hold our breath and close the windows whenever we passed a graveyard 
They’ll get you and never leave you 

You’ve never left me

Hair tugging, moving things, whispering 

The last thing we talked about was religion, you ate your favorite steak and sat down for a movie

I walked the dog around nine for an hour, the night wind brisk, swirling 

wondering what I did to be blessed with such a loving life 

Death terrifies me, it hasn’t always 

Never knowing when it’ll visit

Never knowing who it’ll take

Never knowing 

Left wondering

Dependent, well that was never a word i would’ve used to describe myself 

heavily reliant on another person to make them happy, feel fulffilled and pound away the overwhelming notion of hopelessness engraved into their bones

yep, definitely not me

id rather settle with calling them a distraction instead of admitting that i, who depicts myself as a nonchalant, unfeeling ***** that doesn’t give a **** actually gives a ****

narcissistic much? yep 

happiness, i wish i could call that my goal.
maybe when i was eleven and still held the belief that everything ends up perfect as long as you turn in your homework and dress nicely 

ah, simpler times

now days i only accomplish that so i can motivate myself to keep trying on a daily basis 

even writing seems like a chore that i don’t want to bring myself to finish anymore

getting through the day without repeatedly slamming my head into a wall in order to block out the numbness is my version of happiness now

i wish i could pinpoint when it became like this

my therapist tells me to find what triggers these feelings and once i do to squash them before they can mess with my head

i don’t know how to tell her that there is no trigger, i can’t kick them out when they’ve made me into their home 

i know how it feels to be left behind and i would never put them through that

i decide against telling her I’ve personified my depression now

this is sam, he’s always there to give me a helping hand back into bed when i look in the mirror and don’t want to face myself

this is melody, she’s always there singing soothing tunes to lure me into a spiraling fit of paranoid self hatred 

this is luke, he’s my guardian angel, always following me around making sure to bring me back down to earth whenever i get too happy

I’m grateful for them, i really am.
always involved in my life making sure not to miss anything that happens to me, no matter how big or small

which leaves me to wonder if I’m the one that has pushed all my real friends away, by only ever focusing on my fake ones

not ready to face that yet so ill leave that in the “denial” section of my brain, which is overflowing by the minute

the thing about this sadness, is that I’m not sure who i would be without it

with it goes my sense of identity and I’m not ready to have a one on one session with my real, gritty self because I’m afraid i won’t like what i find

fear, isn’t that what binds us all?

keeps us from leaving people, keeps us from staying with them

dependability, often i tell myself that if i were to live all by my lonesome in alaska with nothing but the sound of wind and smell of the forest i would be content

dependability, being able to be alone is something i pride myself on

dependability, with only my thoughts to keep me company id probably stab myself repeatedly 
dependability, i can’t depend on myself so i have to find someone i can

dependability, the sad truth

Dad has told me since i was born that theres a shark out there with our name on it

Thats why i never go as deep as my shoulders in the ocean

warnings rattle around my head and a sense of abandonment wraps around my legs

maybe the riptide felt like gentle hands leading him home

he’ll find us one day

i wonder if he’s talking about the shark or neevie

often i imagine him living in puerto Rico, having found his way among the waves he would reside in a tiny hut near the ocean side

listening every night as if to receive a whisper saying “come home”

the sole reason of dads birth being to replace his mothers only son

stand in for a deadboy

came out looking the exact opposite 

blonde hair, blue eyes

stevie, her sweet boy

pouring all the bitter, ******* she held into him

didn’t they tell you the bruises left behind were just love marks?

cherish them, it means she cares

mommie dearest loves you so, did you not know?

the closest form of loving someone is hating them and he’s got that down to a science

thoughts of prying the jalousie windows shut during winters in west tampa

counting each bullet that echoed in the distance

sitting on cotton bags skinning potatoes as his father prepared dinner for the navy ship

uncurling himself late at night when the sound of the door opening would alert him that he could finally stop hiding and embrace the warmth his fathers smile radiated

Slamming doors 

Looking into mirrors with no results 

going back rather than letting go

Jittery hands and helpless goodbyes

Wishing for a quarter yet repeatedly receiving a dime 

Wondering when the time would come that you didn’t wish to die

Widening eyes and opening palms

Learning to stand but accepting the fall

Routines, repeat, redo, robust 

Repetition is what hides the rust

Too much smoke not enough air 

Inhale the breeze, exhale the year 

Drink up the bitterness 

Eat away the pain

Run it all off in a day

Start with a beat and end with a tune
August was a bunch of blues

I haven’t thought your name in a month, I forget when the time arrived that I stopped keeping track of how many times you crept across my mind
They say the day that moment arrives is when you’re done grieving
Done allowing the sadness to seep in

Done letting the dead mess with you

Done living life with a ghost
Ma’s seen multiple psychics as a way to still have you in her life
number 4, letter A, books, pride, my voice

Regret

wishes he could still be by our side, living the happy life he led with us before it was so rudely ripped away

As ma says this I turn my head and cover my ears

The dead can’t talk

The dead can’t think 

The dead can’t wish

The dead can’t live

He says he can’t believe how much you’ve grown, your voice, your hair, your strength. He wishes he could’ve been there as you grew up

As ma says this I hold my breath and count to thirty

Thoughts of pale corpses

Thoughts of cold skin

Thoughts of heavy caskets

Thoughts of cold, January wind 

Thoughts of silence 

Ma looks over at me waiting for a response but I only briskly nod my head

The dead terrifies me, always has

Pa telling us to hold our breath and close the windows whenever we passed a graveyard 

They’ll get you and never leave you

You’ve never left me

Hair tugging, moving things, whispering 

The last thing we talked about was religion, you ate your favorite steak and sat down for a movie

I walked the dog around nine for an hour, the night wind brisk, swirling 

wondering what I did to be blessed with such a loving life 

Death terrifies me, it hasn’t always

Never knowing when it’ll visit

Never knowing who it’ll take

Never knowing 

Left wondering

I’m not sure if I’m capable of love

I thought I was a little while back but ever since I realized that he’ll never love me the way I want him to i closed off all possibilities of feeling that dreadful infatuation again

I yearn for the day when I don’t define love as being weak

I think that’s when you know it’s not love

He can never sit back and bask in the moment, always on a tight schedule, always moving

It feels like my childhood all over again

As I talked to him all I felt was the bitter remnants of my father pouring out of him 

Mocking ridicule nagging

I was standing in my mothers shoes 

The only time I feel close with him is when our bodies are doing all the talking

I want somebody to hold my hand not push it away 

We’ll never last but I’ve always known that

I can still hear the collapse of my mothers heart, the shake in her yell and the pounding of her docile fists the day my brother left.

Gasping silence and shocked, wide eyes

She couldn’t believe that the monster she always saw lurking in my father had finally shown its full form.

“He’ll come back, they always do” he said 

“Get off the ground and move on”

As if the absence my brother left behind was just dead weight to be carried.

He only moved into an apartment a few miles away with a girl he tried really hard to love
  
She was just there to help him feel a tiny ounce of independence from the tight knit cell we often found ourselves boxed in.

Tow away his car, **** all the dignity he has left out of him, rough love is real love 

Cancel all his accounts, alienate him from any connection to our blood, rough love is real love

Tell him we won’t be here when he decides to stop dreaming and come back, rough love is real love.

Extract the sound of his name from your lips and discard the memories, easier for us to forget that he exists. 

I used to count sheep whenever the “lets see who can yell louder” game started

I imagined each face was his running as fast as he could to leave this hellhole we called home

I wished I could too.

I still haven’t been able to count sheep since, they only keep me awake serving as reminders of the mock childhood hammered into my skull from the ****** hands of my father.

I used to think I had my mothers heart but more and more of my father is beginning to seep from my pores

Bitter control freak tendencies I can’t scrub out.

You can only be called a worthless  ******* for so long before you  start believing it’s true

I believe that’s why he ran.

Running is a passion of mine

The harder I push, the less I think

I can control the amount of pain I feel.

I’m a runner

But I don’t want to run from this anymore.