winning doesn't taste quite right
when it's all you've eaten in days

don't look at me like that
as I rise on shaking legs
and begin to push my chair up a steep hill.

I am far too tired to put my body through the hell
that self-propulsion would inflict upon me here,
and far too tired to tell you anything more than to
b a c k   o f f
as you raise a judgemental eyebrow,
or make a pointed remark to your friend
about how lazy the youth these days are.

if I could summon the energy, I would say
'forgive me; every cell in my body is giving up on me
and it is almost more than I can bear to be awake right now.'

if I could summon the energy, I might even give
a brief overview of chronic illness, before realizing
that I owe the details of my medical history to nobody.

if I could summon the energy,
I wouldn't be in this ****** chair in the first place
ducking your glares and stares and *******.

so don't you dare look at me like that,
or I'll run my wheels over your foot.

"why do you love her more now than
when I was tomorrow?"
I sat down and looked at the old tomorrow,
taking in his wrinkled eyes
and the day's memories
painted across his skin.
("call me yesterday," he had said earlier
and I had yet to pinpoint why I couldn't quite do that.)

"because," I explained,
"when you were tomorrow,
I loved her with everything I had,
and she gave me a little bit of new love
every day, so I had more.
today I loved her with everything I had,
and when you go,
a new old tomorrow will come
and ask me why I love her more every day
and I'll tell him what I told you:
every day, she teaches me a little bit more
about how to love well
and every day she gives me a little bit more love
so I'll tell her I'll love her tomorrow every night for the rest of my life
and I'll talk to tomorrow every night for the rest of my life
and then I'll tell her all about it in the morning,
and watch the smile spread across her face,
and really, that's all forever is"

tomorrow looked at me with weary eyes,
and then, satisfied, drifted away
to the banks of yesterday
like a leaf on the wind.

sometimes                                   will never
it feels like                                      be even
i am hiding                                         again
so so much                               s
underneath                          e
the surface                      l
and keeping               a
so so much            c       oh
inside that          s          god
t       h       e                help me

do not leave me with what could have been
with all of your
almost-maybe-somedays.

do not tell me that you’re sorry
and that you love me
and that you wish it didn’t have to be like this.

do not make me live in a world without you
do not make me have to drink coffee on my own.

put those pills down and pick up the phone.

by 14, the boy had realised that
home is not a sanctuary
that nothing comes for free
and that some fathers don't know how to love

by 16, he had decided that
even if answers couldn't be found
at the bottom of a bottle
he was **** well going to look there anyway

at 18, he was free;
his life was his own.
now he just had to work out what that meant.

and at 21 he realised that
his life was a little girl
with freckles on her face and stars in her eyes
who picked him flowers to make him smile
and made the chaos of his life a little busier.

she saved that prince
from the dragons
from the fire
and perhaps
from himself.