One day, when you had made up your mind
When you had given up on your grandfather's graveyard of broken down cars
When you decided I had been alone long enough to burn myself out
You vanished.

Mother was the voice in your head promising that nothing would be easy
Our sister is the one telling you to get a running start
And I was whispering, "Be careful," but I've watched you
I can promise that you never heard me

My coat was still in my hand as I walked out of school
My hand meant to throw it around my shoulders and zip it up
It was freezing
My hand forgot

I keep telling myself that she killed you
But I know that isn't true.
I know your soul got all mixed around, made some wrong turns
It isn't fair to believe that she loved you.
Believing that she understood all of the cracks in your skin just like I did hurts worse than the spot on my couch you don't take up anymore

The last time I saw you, you were buried in some sort of library
Some sort of maze you built around yourself so you wouldn't have to escape
I left you
But I can't help imagining someone dropped a cigarette,
Your mind ignited and fell to ashes

I hate you, because this was not a love story.

I have nightmares about girls in busted-up porcelain ball gowns
Their teacups overturned but the party isn’t over
Their clockwork fingertips uncurl
Clicking like gears into the hands of the flesh-and-bone boys who will lead them onto the dance floor
The question is met with the sound of high heels hitting the ground all at once
The violin belts out of some boy's phone left on speaker
He steps on their toes.

I've been sitting on the edge of my bed for a couple of days now
See, it's been raining outside and I feel bad for the garden it drowned
But there's nothing I can do
When I saw the roots floating above the soil, I realized I should just stay inside and breathe
When I say, "the sound of rain on a metal roof," you can hear it
But when I say,
"The sound of rain muddled with concrete and grass two floors down half drowned out by the sound of my roommate getting in too late,"
You're wondering why I feel as though it's seeping through two stories of apartments and hitting my skin
Full speed, still freezing, still drowning the garden

I've been fixated on the idea of decomposing
See, I've always said that reincarnation must be real
Because when my body isn't mine anymore, it will feed some plant
Maybe I am already buried out in the garden and that's why it feels like I'm drowning
I've been swinging my feet over the edge of my bed so that I know where the air is
Just in case I come back to life and need to breath it again

I'm sorry, to the last man who died before the war ended
Please stop pulling up my flowers,
Please stop flooding their roots
My toes are cold ankle deep in their soil
I would never have pulled the trigger
You would have planted a beautiful garden

Dear Grandfather,
This is my response to your second response to my Thanksgiving card
I put your letter in my drawer
Didn't realize it was the last time I would be able to read all of your handwriting
I'm glad you're enjoying the baseball games
Sorry my college doesn't have a football team
If we did, I'd be in the front row so you could see me on the cameras

Dear Grandfather,
Merry Christmas
I got your letter right before my father picked me up to take me home for break
Crying, it found a home in my backpack
I would ask my mom to make out the words I couldn't understand
I didn't
Realized you were just talking about bingo
Congratulations, sorry about the snowstorms

Dear Grandfather,
Happy Easter,
Please forgive the smeared ink on all of my cards
My eyes are trying not to see what's happening, so they tear up
I could only make out a few words of your letter
I'm glad you remembered my science classes
They gave me a position researching diabetes
The one diagnoses you don't have
I think that if I studied Alzheimer's, I'd forget you are more than a patient
A failed trial
I can't do that to myself

Dear Grandfather
This is my response to your radio silence
If I were there, I would hold your hand
Knowing that touch and smell can jog memories
I envy your ability to read my letters every time as if it were the first
Hope that you can feel me through them
Hope that some days, you remember the first time, the first letter
The sweatshirt you gave me when I was little
I can't find any other way to hold on to you
So I'll make cards for the fourth of July weeks early
I'll write in the cursive that reminds me of you
I'll read your old letters like it's the first time

Booting up,
Blue screen
Press enter to accept default settings
Body; female, almost adult
The background is a picture of you holding my puppy
And the table is cluttered in the way it always was before we cleaned it so mom would have somewhere to put her feet up
I put the camera down because photos are just pixels and I can never have this moment back
My dad is singing about Caroline and the miners and the puppy sings along
He tries to chase the cat and gets a scratch on his nose
I walk through the glass door onto the porch and the shocking reality of the wood on my bare feet reminds me that I’m staring at a computer screen

Restart
Enter password, incorrect
Reset, password too weak, can’t hold onto memories for you
Every once in awhile, the white noise of the public pools plays in my head
And the smell of sunscreen sunburns and I’m not listening to my parents
It sounds like the successful login jingle
I think I know that girl over there, but I’m not sure
I mostly play alone
How has nobody noticed how cold this water is?

Error, Corrupt file
My dad sits with his computer out at the campground looking at google earth
I can’t remember anything he ever said about it but I feel the mosquito bites
I think my body is a dot to dot that someone did when they were bored at the diner
And I’m sorry if they skipped a few and I ended up piecemeal
Maybe my dad has something for it in the medical kit

Error, out of storage space
The essay needs to be saved so the pictures get deleted
I’m almost through when I see you holding my puppy
See your eyes meet mine
See my own feet on the hard ground
I’m more aware of my chipped nail polish and the space in between my toes
It think these floor stains are ours
I think this will never be my room again
I think my bed is imaginary
I think my mind is a photograph

Error, event already occurred
Cannot reconstruct file
Cannot help you fill in all the gaps
Cannot tell you what is missing
Cannot let you hold your puppy

Thank you for getting angry when I didn’t have enough pans to make your eggs
The one thing I didn’t offer for breakfast
I told you over and over again I wouldn’t eat
Still you scowled at my lack of ingredients or kitchen tools
Refused to cook dinner with me
It gave me a reason to leave
Girls stay on bad dates because we’re convinced you’re the good guy
Just misguided
Love will change you, you’ll be better
But you stood in my kitchen and tried to take my roommate’s things and I thought
“I have the right to leave you.”

If independence is my cardinal sin,
I’ll walk right up to Satan and tell him to please leave his shoes by the door
I go to bed early and I shower at night
With time, we can pull him from the bargaining stage of grief
The only hell I could ever be left in is a weekend with man who expects my body as a welcome gift
Into my apartment
Wants me to buy new plates because a table setting for one isn’t good enough for two
As if you live at my kitchen table
Both nights I didn’t eat, was sick to my stomach
Afraid that you might see me settle down and construct an opportunity
I’m not sorry for my lack of dinnerware
You ate off the plate that holds my toast each morning near my diet coke
You participated in the ritualism that constructs me an independent woman
The body you will not lay hands on today, owner of the bed you will not sleep in
I did not let you remove that from me
If I had bought plates for you, you may have come back.