It’s Sunday,
and I call my mother.
I spend an hour picking shards out of my teeth
From whatever broke her.
It’s an art I’ve practiced since childhood:
Smiling with gums bleeding.

You’d only hear the grimace in my voice
If you listened to me like I was a person.
Listened
As if I was not a reflection
Or an extension.

It’s Sunday,
and my mother answers
Without the slightest hint
That by the time I finished
dialing her number
The first aid kit had already been opened.

My fiancée’s fingers hover over an
“Are you alright?” text
Poised to hit send
When she hears the grimace -

Because she hears the grimace.

It’s Sunday,
And I do not call my mother.
My birthday visited yesterday
And echos greeted me
In her place -

Fractures that had been growing
unspoken,
We fell into headfirst.

My gums aren’t bleeding
But my teeth still ache.

Your grief barks at faces
That aren’t there
And you do nothing
To stop it
As it bares its teeth
And bites back into the past;
Memories bleeding
And you do nothing
To stop them
As their blood pools
And stains your feet;
You walk through the years
Leaving tracks
Leading from things that happened
That never have healed
And still,
Your grief is barking
And biting
And still,
You do nothing
To stop it.

Aren’t you tired of hurting?

I will love you with a soul on fire
With my spine as the wick;
I will love you as long
As my days are quick.

A brokenness is in us
Like a window
Never closed;
Drafty and meddlesome
When it rains,
But at least the sun
Always finds its way in
And least we remember
That we are more
Than our flaws -
We are also the light
That shines through them.

I’ve tried to discover secrets
But I am not tall enough to swim
In some parts of my heart
And the universe is under construction
But they won’t say when it opens
And the most radical things I have found
That I can possibly say to you are:

I love you, I’m sorry, I’m trying.

A mantra, a chant, a benediction?
Definitions are only important for the dictionary
Tomorrow checks out of the library,
Because the Present cannot read
So it does not care for words written
On spongy walls in the dead of night.
The present cares about the decorations
Of space called actions and whether
They match the aesthetic
And I don’t know if mine do but:

I love you, I’m sorry, I’m trying

If you hear echoes and they are the same hue
As you knew me to be, and you wonder
If they are shockwaves from the time
I jumped headfirst into the shallow end
Of a sunny day trying to find words
That would mean something to you,
I hope they have not been distorted beyond
The ability to make out
My heart desperately beating in its staccato:

I love you, I’m sorry, I’m trying

Because I am weak
I am small
I am struggling
And many days
I am dying,
But
I love you,
I’m sorry,
And I’m trying.

I’d fall from heaven a thousand times
If I knew you were wishing on me like a shooting star

And I think there’s a name for that -

When you’re willing to run headfirst
Into the worst pain you’ve ever felt
So the person on the other side
Sees fireworks and believes even for a moment
That everything is beautiful.

I’d crush myself into a fine powder and sprinkle it on a windowsill
If it made you believe in pixie dust and laughing sprites
And filled you with the spirit that you were young and free and innocent.

You wouldn’t even have to know it was my heart
laying on the ground at the door,
there to wipe off all the dirt from the roads
you’ve been forced to travel alone,
before you stepped into the future

And I think there’s a name for that -

I just want to make your eyes sparkle
like remnants of the first volcanic eruption
that gave birth to the cliffs we’ve danced upon
like edges aren’t permanent
And our bodies aren’t temporary -

I just want to be a thing that makes this heavy world you wear like a fashionable coat
And not the strait jacket it feels like to me,
A little lighter, a little easier;

I want to be a thing with my back pushed against the walls
Straining to keep them even an inch further away
So that life is a little more spacious for you,
And you have the room to take deeper breaths -

And I do not mind if you don’t know it’s me who’s falling from great heights
To be your shooting star,
because it’s not about me at all -

It’s about giving your wishes a chance to come true,
And the willingness to crash and burn and do it again and again
Until the universe takes pity and starts listening and makes it happen.

And I think there’s a name for that -

This is me with my heart in the chamber
And my lips on the trigger
Giving you my best shot.
I hope you see me falling across the sky
Just for you
And I hope you make a wish on me
And I hope I figure out
By the time I hit the ground
How to make your wish come true.

And I think there’s a name for that-

And if it’s not
What I think it’s called,
It’s still yours regardless.