I hate that I never said goodbye.

I was only eleven,
and I was a liar,
and I was tired of
hospital beds and crying people and mysterious smells and sounds
and flowers and hymn-singing and
useless tacky balloons that only wasted space,
wilting and deflating after only a few days,
and crumpling to the linoleum into a
shiny crinkled fifteen-dollar piece of trash.

(I thought it was beautiful,
           but it was such a waste because
      of course you never noticed.)

The February outside was damp and indecisive,
spring one day and winter back the next,
but I would have much rather been out on the freezing cold lawn
than in that tension-filled room of white.
Finally, I could stand it,
once you were home (still in that mechanical bed,
but at least you were in a room with a beautiful stained glass window
and forest green carpet dusted with dog hair)
on that last night
- though of course we could not know it was the last
while we stood in that golden room
and sang you to sleep.

It was terrible-awful to see my father cry
in his father's old navy suit
to be sitting, numb and nonchalant in the first pew
right in the front of the church
right where your slate grey coffin lay
draped in the glorious red white and blue.
And to know that
I had lied when I walked out that door
into the star-sparkled night
because even while I loved you
and love you still
I didn't say goodbye that night.

- February 18th, 2007 -

kissing you was like swerving into oncoming traffic

i can never tell if i am more haunted by empty picture frames or the ashes of their contents

you taught me that the saying "pick your battles" meant not answering when love was at the door

sometimes when i drink whiskey i swear i can hear your voice in the creases of my bedsheets & i sleep on the floor

i still catch myself running my hands over things you touched the most, looking for the echoes of your fingertips

i practice things i'll never say to you

i remember the day you told me you didn't like poetry, how "everything's already been said" & how "nothing meaningful can be captured without being cliche" you know, i don't miss you like the sun and moon, i do not miss you like tide bent waves crashing on the shoreline, i miss you like a chernobyl  swingset misses children

rumor has it that drowning is a lot like coming home, that drinking bleach can **** the butterflies in your stomach

for your love of cigarettes, i would have been an ashtray

this halloween i want to dress up as the you when you loved yourself and show up on your doorstep

i never understood what you meant when you said i was an instrument, back when you would cup your hands around my chest and breathe through the holes in my heart, i still wonder if the sounds i made remind you of wind chimes

i never paid much attention to abandoned buildings until i became one

in my dreams all the flowers smell like your perfume

i am the only person who has ever wished for the same snowflake to fall twice

if i could go back, and rewrite the definition of audacity, it would be how when we lost the bet of love, you said "we never shook on it"

i love you, if the feeling is not mutual, please pretend this was a poem

the only apology i want from you, is to have you repeat the names of children we will never have in your parents living room until they *****

we are the same person if you find yourself up at 4am dry heaving promises, or if you are kept awake by the laughter of those who've abandoned you

nobody ever told you that goodbyes taste like the back of stamps

sometimes i'm convinced that the only reason we hug, is so you can check my back for exit wounds

hey

i think you are cool

and i think your eyes are the most beautiful thing i've seen
today, or any day
and your voice and your laugh and your hair
and every silly thing about you
i notice it
and I can't get myself to stop

you are a good friend

but you could be so much more
if you could see the desperation
in my eyes, and how
easily i am swayed by anything you do
can't you see
the power you have
over me?

thanks for talking to me today

about such meaningless stupid things,
when all i wanted was to tell you
The Truth
and every time you speak my name
or look into my eyes
it leaps to my lips
and it is such a pathetic battle to keep me
from saying

I really appreciated it

but ‘appreciated’ is such a flimsy word
and not what i mean at all
what i mean is that
you chose to spend your time with me
and for that i am so
eternally grateful to you

stay great! :)

*because how else could you possibly stay
in my mind, you are near flawless
and wondrous
and writing a silly note
on a scrap of paper
to tell you how i feel
will never
is never
can never
be enough.