someone told me i wear mourning like a fur coat
beautifully, grotesquely, i bear the weight of it all
i paint my face and it should be with ash
but i am not native
i have no roots to sink my heaviness towards
the heaviness of a burden i don’t deserve to carry
the night i heard i held myself tightly, arms wrapped around my torso
my mouth gaped open
i turned on the shower as hot as i could stand it
i hope it felt cathartic when you set yourself on fire
set your home on fire
you said sorry as you went
you were always apologizing
some people lay in comas for years
miracles happen, they say
and they do
i wonder who waited 4 ******* days for a miracle before giving up on you
my therapist helped me set up a self-care routine to keep panic attacks at bay
it involved lighting a candle so i just slit my wrist instead
i could take the pain but fire feels cheap
i wonder if you screamed
the day after i found out
i walked to my mother’s coffee shop,
sat down outside,
and choked on sobs until the dam burst
i put on my sunglasses and went home
i made the last 10 minutes of psychology class
we were discussing grief
the professor explained the stages
he mentioned denial
i said i didn’t believe that was always the case
that night i laid in bed drinking chocolate milk from the carton
i watched American beauty,
alternating between touching myself and screaming into a pillow
i dreamt about the slutty insinuation of a used match
i dreamt about fathers and plastic bags
it’s 2:30 am i am sitting alone in a ball room with a man who told me he needs a machine to sleep
he is telling me that he is happy he lost the highs and lows
he can’t fall in love but he is happy
i told him my mania makes me
he smiles indulgently, he is the cat
(i spent the day buying imported lingerie
French silk and canary yellow lace)
when we danced he put his knee between mine and crushed my ******* to his chest
i wonder if he felt the way blackberry brandy made my words syrupy and dark
pooling at the base of my throat
he said life only gets weirder from here
i am waiting for him to get his keys. i am alone at 3 am in a ballroom. i am seeing burning houses. i am tasting blackberries. i am hearing you whisper “collide”. i am wearing my mourning like a fur coat and in it i am small and vulnerable and beautiful in a contained way
in it i can stay within the confines of 2011 and i can feel you peel back layers of longing to hit a pit of bitter love
this was never a poem about you
you’re sorry
Thomas Forsyth 1/19/92-5/29/14

February
i woke up on an island at 5:30 am, 15 minutes of sleep
an infected lip piercing, a bottle of cisco and a tin cup
the acre was covered in sleepy studded bodies slumped over in tents and on the floor inside and
i watched the sun rise
i ran into someone i hadn’t seen in 4 years
we hadn’t heard from him after his rehab stunt and assumed he’d OD’d after he left
we stayed up together and he caught the first bus back into the city
walking along dirt roads with his fingers hooked in his belt loops
December
your band played my friend’s show but i didn’t see you
i was outside smoking and flirting away beers from lonely fathers
it was friday and i had worked my first 10 hour shift
i felt untouchable
the next night we met at the bonfire
you introduced yourself to me and my friend while we talked about her court case by the sink
it’s hazy in my head from the wine and the pills
a few months later i wished i could remember it more clearly
when i left the party you pulled the choke chain around my neck
told me i shouldn’t let myself be owned by someone else
then kissed my mouth
i was with you the night james was put away for ****** possession 5 months later
you swerved the van away 3 feet from the bridge railing
i wasn’t wearing a seatbelt
the taste of malt liquor turns my stomach
March
i met a man at a drum circle and thought i was in charge
until we left his apartment to meet my friends after a week and i was already 2 shots and 2 pills down at 11 am
i thought i was over intimidation tactics but i can’t remember 8 solid hours hours of my life
i know we ended up at overlook because that’s what they told me later
liquor had me feeling so good i forgot xanax was a drug
xanax had me feeling so good i forgot oxycontin was an ******
6 weeks later he was arrested for insurance fraud
he has a nice cottage with pink trimmed windows in santa ana and a steel rod in his spine
with how much time i have spent in rooms labeled as ‘calming’
you would think pavlov would have something to say about low warm lighting and
overstuffed couches and the effect they have now
some people say that when you watch someone die
you can see their soul float out of their body
i’ve never seen it
but maybe that’s just more proof
i don’t like to say overcompensation
but i don’t know what other umbrella term to use
for every time i have ever said “i love you”
to anyone

I can’t sleep when the lights are on
needle in arm,
your very best friend died on my birthday.
you found out exactly two months later
two months of ***** kid paradise
ohio looked more approachable from florida.
his parents said you were the last to speak to him alive.
you were wishing to god
you had been sober for this conversation.
that year christmas was big macs and
sour apple jello shots.
It felt like riding in rockstar vans with men who were
my god and lucifer all at once and
you can call me Persephone
you can call me bad luck.

I.
ask me if it hurts.
i will bleed salt water rivers at your feet
and in the mud i
worship like a kicked puppy
begging
(malnourished)
you’re the one with cellophane sadness chasing the dragon
rushing through your veins like a forest fire
they say it makes room for new life.
don’t act like he didn’t save your ******* life
don’t act like you can call this a ******* life
smaller than small
call me a safe bet.
call me when she’s gone
stop drinking, call me
ask you if it hurts
“i don’t feel a thing”
II
i was told success is the sweetest revenge and i’m sugar. baby i’m black and white. i do it like you wish you could. honey i’m fire. ******* i’m fire. i’m licking up the walls i’m shooting from the gun i’m gone before you can think to catch me i’m wondering why they name hurricanes like pretty women but other natural disasters are brought up only when you’re coated in ash, standing just outside of the sea breeze, san diego about 2003. revenge is something like 5 am lift your head off a stranger’s kitchen counter with a sniff revenge is something like going going going 70 miles an hour if we look back we’ll lose the nerve revenge is something like midnight, train tracks, 5 shots down and ready to watch the blood flow go get ‘em champ. revenge left me shaking for 3 days preaching apologies to the choir sutured wounds begging for relief and i am a statue on the top of a parking garage, i am praying “jump”. by the time they ask me if it hurts i am dreaming and in this dream the trees forgot your name and so did i and i won’t feel a thing.
III.
twist the steel in my back until you turn me on
don’t mind the purple tinge under my eyes
(i feel stronger than i look, you could call it a trap)
bruises are just flowers blooming under wary skin and
i bruise you in dreams
i kiss un-diagnosable pain onto your vulnerable throat while you sleep
i sneak to your bed to pour salt in new wounds
ask me if it hurts
i don’t feel a thing

no one ever looked so cool
they never needed a reason
singing “my best friend is a 6 pack” in the back of a pickup like they’ve never heard of manifesting
he’ll kiss track marks on her arm like the golden years were going to waste away regardless
forget about the consequences you’ve blacked out with sidewalk slams and a burning nose
always finding a way back to the other
cellophane chains locking together two algolagnic beauties
the type with those big blue ***** den dream eyes and shredded skin
leather skin guaranteed to satisfy if you like it with a dose of disappointing your parents
can’t spend more than a night with them unless the sound of bottles smashing on the sides of houses is a turn on
but they kiss and make up like broken glass in your hands is routine in courtship
for some i guess it is
violence made her jumpy but the way she smiles now
untouchable goddess sly
statuesque
cold
ethereal decomposing beauty
almost makes up for it.
for some i guess it does.