I wear your tags around my neck,
my own personal lockets with your name engraved,
where they hang low enough to hear my
heartbeat pulse within the safety of my chest.
The metal is cold against
the skin that covers my *******.
And they’ve folded the fifty stars
and thirteen red and white stripes that protected
your casket, even after your heart stopped beating
into its triangle form, and
they handed it over like a death sentence
given to the wrong inmate,
for a crime he never committed.
I held the shield against my body,
wrapping myself around the cloth,
curving my body about the ripples
which reminded me of the heart monitor
that showcased your breathing
before the line went flat.
But it felt nothing like the way
your body felt folded against mine
in the darkness of your last night home
before you left for your final tour
in the foreign land that was as strange
as the first time we made love,
exploring the geography of our
different maps holding buried treasures
beneath the surface of our skin.
In our strangeness, I lost everything to you,
wandering without a compass.
And ultimately I ended up losing you to
the strangeness of the land, instead of
in the familiarity of my arms.

And I wish I could’ve convinced you to stay.
But I was never good at tug of war,
and Iraq was so much stronger than I.
Standing next to your casket, dressed in a mask of tears,
destroyed mascara and black clothing for your funeral
as your fellow brothers in arms,
who became my brothers too, hold their guns
pointed towards you in the sky; your own salute.
But it’s peaceful to know that your ears no longer ring
with machine guns and you’ll sleep peacefully from here until forever
instead of fighting enemies, even in your nightmares and daydreams.
I am grieving but I am blessed
that you are no longer suffering and miserable.

For every star that whispers against
The cold December sky, there’s a wandering
Soul that tiptoes like a ballerina skates across
An icy stage before losing control underneath
The only street lamp that glared a yellow light
Up and down a short distance on the empty street.
One lost and broken body, crawling over
Paved concrete, looking for a part that hadn’t
Had the time to dry in the lukewarm sunlight.
For each shattered heart, waiting to be buried in
The wet concrete, hoping to mend its cracks
And fill its craters from too many punches to
The center of ourselves that should
Receive nothing more than love,
Will find its peace within the outside flooring
Where nothing is no longer temporary.

There’s an infinite amount of things in this world that I’ll never understand; an enormous list of things I’ll never know the rhyme or reason behind, if there is one. I can never understand why there are days when out of the blue, watching TV downstairs, that she’ll just get up and leave the room, making an exit to our bedroom, and our bed. I’ll never understand why her brain has less chemicals than mine, why she suffers from depression, and I’m just fine.

But as I watch her crawl up the stairs slowly, I know that the tears have already began to well up in her eyes and are threatening to spill over but she’s keeping her composure as long as she can until she’s hidden away inside our room. And thirty seconds later, she’ll have unleashed the flood of salty liquid down her cheeks until they mark the pillow case with mascara and eyeliner.

And after letting her sob in a silence that she thinks I cannot hear, I’ll make my way up the stairs to find her with her back towards the door, her shoulders shaking as she tries to stop the rain from falling, hoping I’ll leave it alone and leave the room.

But it’s too much to see her fight this battle on her own. It’s too hard to see the scars she’s taken in a haste to finish the war for the night and start again unexpectedly in the future. So instead, I don’t ask her what’s wrong or why she’s crying because I know that she doesn’t even know why the tears are falling so quickly. I know that she’s just as lost as I am in this mission.

So I won’t leave the room, but I’ll lay down beside her and listen to her as she continues trying to stop her tears, the sniffling of her nose before she knows she can’t win and let’s herself go once more in the presence of me. And before long, I’ll wrap my arms around her shoulders and hold her in them until she relaxes in my security.

There are things in this world that I’ll never understand, like how she can be so miserable and I can be just fine; why she was born with a brain with less chemicals than mine.

I’d caught her in the act twice before and the silence from the upstairs bedroom was louder than the TV broadcasting the news tonight. Any other night, I could hear her footsteps against the floorboards, the opening and shutting of doors, cupboards, closets, but tonight when I muted the TV, all I heard was quiet.

I walked cautiously up the stairs, always unprepared for what I might find. I kept my ears open for any hint that she was simply sleeping. The light glowed underneath the closed bedroom door and I knew that she was inside; asleep or passed out from an overdose, I could never be sure.

Pushing on the door, it didn’t budge; a little harder and I could tell she’d put the chair to the vanity under the doorknob to keep out intruders such as myself. I could hear the clicking of an object and I couldn’t be sure what it was.

“Seely, open the door,” I said to her through the crack I’d formed between the door and the frame.

She was out of sight, which left me still unsure of what the clicking I’d heard before was.

“Babe, come on,” I said, “open the door.”

I pushed harder and the barrier opened a tiny bit more. One more push and I’d broken through her barricade. She was standing with her back facing me, her hands playing with the object in front her chest, but still out of my sight. Her long, brunette hair hung to the middle of her back and she was wearing a slimming backless, black dress that had no occasion to be worn for tonight.

“Seely,” I whispered, entering the room more cautiously than I had while climbing the stairs.

Edging closer to her, I suddenly recognized the clicking coming from between her fingers. I gently touched her shoulder and she turned to face me, tears streaming down her face. Her mascara was a mess over her rosy cheeks and the circular indent from the barrel of my small handgun was imprinted against the side of her forehead.

She’d dressed up to die and I’d interrupted her date with death.

“I can’t figure out how to load it,” she said with her eyes glazed over in tears, mascara continuing to streak down her face.

“Jesus Seely,” I said and quickly grabbed the weapon from her. “What the hell are you doing?”

The safety of the gun had been switched off and she’d placed one bullet inside the chamber. I unloaded the weapon and placed it in the closet, making a mental note to get rid of it in the morning. Returning out of the closet, Seely had sunken against the wall, hugging her knees to her chest, tears steadily streaming down her face and landing on top of her legs.

I ran my hand through my hair, tugging on it out of frustration. I sighed in anger and closed my eyes in an attempt of thinking what I should do next.

“Why do you do this?” I asked her from across the room. “Why?”

She only shook her head and I knew she held the words on the tip of her tongue but could never tell me what exactly was going on inside her mind.

“Why can’t you see that it’s not your time?” I said a little louder, “why can’t you accept that?”

“Because I don’t want to be here anymore,” she said with the same tone of voice that I had. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Well God doesn’t want you yet; it’s not your time,” I was almost yelling at her now. “Don’t you think if it was your turn he’d have taken you the first time I found you with three bottles of pills swallowed? Why would he let you live long enough to have your stomach pumped and survive?” I paused, letting my words sink in. “Or the second time when you wrapped your car around that tree and you hadn’t been wearing your seatbelt. The suicide note was taped to the dashboard and your body was ejected from the car a few feet away. You should’ve died, Seely, but you didn’t. He doesn’t want you yet.”

She was sobbing now as I dug up her skeletons from the past. I sighed loudly and knelt down beside her, grabbing her hands and holding them in mine. The truth was, I didn’t know if it was her time or not. I didn’t know if God wanted her right now, tomorrow, the next year or in fifty years, but I knew that she couldn’t get lucky three times. She’d upgraded to the gun I had stashed in the closet and I knew there’d be no coming back from the bullet she was preparing to take to the side of her head.

“Seely, talk to me,” I whispered to her. “Tell me what’s going on inside.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” she whispered.

And I knew that I wouldn’t but it didn’t stop me from trying.

The other day, my grandma asked if I was still having trouble,
And I don’t think she realizes that depression isn’t just something I can turn off and on.
It can’t ever be cured completely.
So in response to her question, I knew my answer:
I’d never be completely untroubled. My war against depression would always rage on.
But instead of being on the losing side, I was finally ahead in the battle.
Some days are harder than others, but the fight will never end.

Our whisper wars in the dark
Speak louder than the stars
Shining above. Their luminosity
Brightens my skin while I
Cradle into you.
Your secrets at 3 in the morning
Burn deep into my heart and
I keep them protected behind
My ribcage.
I hold your breaths against my *******
While the rise and fall of your chest
Moves like the tide of the ocean
Against the sand of the beach.
When you begin to drown in
The moonlight of the night,
Know that I am pacing the shoreline
With my flaming candle,
Waiting for your cries from within the waves.
Please know that when the wind blows out
The flickering fire, making wishes
For happiness, that dust from dandelions
Will still be visible in the air;
No matter how crisp the water’s kisses
Are against my cheek.
And know that even in the darkness
Of our ocean, when I’m losing
My strength to tread salt,
I will always reach for you,
Both to save you and be rescued.

It takes both hands to count the number of times I’ve been ***** but doesn’t count because I didn’t say ‘no.’
Both hands to recall the men who I felt obligated to sleep with because I had turned them on it’d be ‘mean’ to leave them that way.
On both hands, I can remember the number of times the smell of alcohol on his breath made me want to ***** as he kissed my neck before thinking that I wanted it.
Both hands to count the number of times I wasn’t strong enough to push him off of me before he pushed inside of me.
Both hands to count the number of times he told me to ‘calm down, it was alright.’
I used both hands too many times to run my nails down his back, making him think I was enjoying myself; hoping to end it end sooner.
On both hands, I can count the number of ******* I faked on a different man’s mattress in a different position than the man before.
On both hands, I can count the number of times I said I liked it from behind the most so I wouldn’t have to see his face.
On both hands, I can count the number of men I thought might sleep with me and actually like me instead of using me as just another way to get laid.
Both hands I can count the number of times he finished and I got dressed in the dark so that I could leave and never hear from him again.
On both hands, I can count the number of times I’ve cried myself to sleep, feeling ashamed of the number of men I’d wished I’d said ‘no’ to.
Both hands I can count the number of nights I’ve stayed up only to cut another slash through my wrist and let his memory seep through the wound.  
On both hands, I count the number of times I didn’t want to have ***, but felt guilty and pressured into doing what he wanted.
Both hands I can count the number of times I’ve been *****, but didn’t say no, didn’t struggle, only cried in silence after it was over.