Brian was the perfect teammate.  We were team parents and out numbered 3-2.  But he was a strong enough player to hold a level playing field.  When bases were loaded, he was the catcher and tagged our children before they could score a run.  His commitment to our team made us strong and we did the best that we could to hold them on base during the teenage years.  But their team was stacked.  Three heavy hitters ready to stand up to the championship team…  Wow!  What an amazing game we all played together.  And I had an outstanding coach.

            But one day, one of their player’s was injured and could no longer play the game.  It was a sad day, the day we realized that we were one team and that one of our star players would not be there to help bring our team back to victory!  We suffered a few bases, but even though we did, we still came out winners….

Krystalyn married the man of her dreams.  She brought 2 new players to the game, Joel and Zoey.  3 runs there.  Sean has gotten sober and is in school to be an oral assistant.  Score 3 more.  I have moved on to be G-Ma and the proudest parent I can be… I scored 3.  Brian fell in love, remarried and shared our family victories.  4 more runs.

            What an awesome team.  We are sad that Brian was injured and cannot play anymore. We will miss our coach. .  But, we are happy he and Jay are together now in the bleachers and keeping score.  We are still winning…. 13-0.

my body is still warm in the
places where you pressed
  against me as you
****** out from my bones
any ounce of apathy
I might have had left
  and my guts flutter
violently like a moth trapped in a glass box
  and I can't wait
to never have to see you again
because I could love someone who is
seven times better than you
        but right now
    my waist can't stop remembering
    the places your fingers sometimes liked to rest

I suspended my disbelief for you
but you forgot me somewhere
   like a flea
   behind the cigarettes and ******
   behind the pretty girls who tease
   behind the marrow in your knees
but some mornings, you wake up panicked
swollen with the sweat of something you might have once dreamed

empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty emptyempty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty emptyempty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty emptyempty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty emptyempty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty emptyempty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty emptyempty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty emptyempty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty emptyempty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty empty
eeeeeeeeeeeemmmmmmppp..tyyyyyyyyyyy
eeeeeeeeeeeemmmmmmppp..ty

O, to live in the absence of time
when days are not days, but moments
always begun, never at end
unplanned, uncharted
and remembered

First, if I am comatose for a while pre-death, don't let them call me a fighter.
I'm probably not fighting it.
It's probably the first time I've been able to relax in a decade.

Second, keep my death off the internet.
Tell my friends of my demise with handwritten notes delivered by white-gloved butlers with somber expressions.
Tell my enemies by sitting on their chests and poking them in the forehead repeatedly until they guess how it happened. It shouldn't take long.

Third, my friends from high school will immediately try to design stickers for their car windows with my name on them and a graphic of dance shoes or track shoes or my college mascot.
You are not to allow this.
A sticker denoting the death of a loved one will not keep fellow motorists from noticing that my friends from high school **** at driving.

Not permitted at the funeral:
Gerber daisies
poetry
blue jeans
any ex-boyfriend I refer to by something other than their name (i.e. "the fat hipster I used to hang out with.")

Encouraged at the funeral:
Hugs - everyone must hug
lots of appropriately sad, yet tasteful songs sung by my musically-minded loved ones (may I suggest "In Light of Time" by Phillip E. Silvey?)
And make sure they bury me in the blue dress.

Last, for every story they tell about me where I was kind or selfless or funny or caring,
make sure someone also tells the story where I got too drunk at a frat house and made out with a kid from upstate New York and then spent four hours passed out and/or puking on the floor of the communal bathroom in Ashley's building,
or the one where I punched Savannah in third grade,
or the one where I rolled a car for no particular reason.

Remember me as I was.

Somewhere has my name on it,
            maybe everywhere does.

Like little strips of paper, fortunes from folded cookies.
Master Plan let them go in a gust of Great Plains wind.

I cannot hope to collect every
                                    single
                                                 individual
                              piece                            part
                                                   place                
                                         bit    
                                                     back.
I cannot live unless I try.