i'm picking my nails at the dinner table
thinking of ways to tear myself apart
wondering if you'd even agree with me right now
if you'd be proud of me
or are you yelling at me from wherever you are

i'd like to think you're somewhere nice
in a pool where the water is crystal clear
sipping something strong and watching me ruin my life

sometimes i'd rather you turn the tv off and throw the remote

this show ***** anyway

i found myself stuttering over your name in conversation

it was almost two months ago

although i keep wondering if it happened for a reason
maybe to prevent the eventual sobbing that night
doesn't mean i don't kick myself for it

i constantly feel the weight of your ghost
maybe it's selfish of me to notice the consistency of you
or to assume it is always you

or is it low of me to think that you wouldn't be there

i've held onto this thought since july

and i'm just angry you're dead

i want to write of you
but i cannot bring myself to finish anything i say
writing about grief through grief
is hard

and you would think that it would be easy
since i've been writing for years
i hate leaving things unfinished

i try not to think of it often
maybe that's the problem

i freeze when i do

the longest road is the one you keep looking back on
the longer you stare
the more it stretches

it seems that the roads i walk have the most rigid bones
the ones that can't quite stretch to that spot
such an ache that i feel it in my own bones

the fact that you're no longer alive
grasps me in the strangest moments
and those bones come through the dirt to hold onto me

they remind me that i too
am in constant ache

i.
i've met god
he's lying six feet deep
in the rare greens of chicago
where the trees make up for the emptiness
the loss
the silence

the grass seems so frightening for its purpose
but yet so full and comforting
i don't blame the slumber

i blame the normality of it all