I was there,
Sitting in the kitchen as your children discussed
What your final months would be like.
It was right after the pumpkin and pecan pie had been eaten
And they were asking themselves if they should make you fight—
To not go gentle into that goodnight.
After all the pain—the deep cracks in your fingers and
You’d just smile and say “that’s what radiation does”—
The price you pay to fight to be alive.
The Chemotherapy that made you sick for days
And that time you got pneumonia;
When I had to wear a face mask just to be in the same room
And your son was convinced you weren’t going to make it.
But I sat at that table covered in a golden cloth,
Gravy remnants on the place mats,
And you had only left our house 20 minutes ago.
But here they were,
Wishing you to rage against the dying of the light.
How dare they.
You have suffered enough and if you want to leave
Please go.
The sun is setting,  
And it’s wrong to beg you to stay.

Sneakers tied liked bunny ears
and ponytails tucked under helmets,  
my sister and I ride our pink and green bicycles
a quarter mile down the road from our house.
We pause at the gate to read the sign but don’t enter.
We ride further to take the back way,
Racing on the gravel path to be the first down the hill.
As we pedal on the now smooth, intertwining pathways,
we speed past Thomas Walsh and his wife, Louise.
We circle around baby Alex and little Marie.
The green grass alive and flourishing, and
the sun shining on our young, sweaty faces.
We keep our distance when we notice a car,
so we don’t disturb them—
this place is not ours alone.
But as soon as they leave we race again.
The wind flying past our faces—
we imagine this is what sticking
your head out a car window feels like.
After twenty minutes we grow tired and decide to leave,
but not without saying goodbye
to Colonel Andrew D. Walker.
He died the day I was born.

Sheets tangle with skin and
moonlight shines on pale legs- entwined.
Sloppy kisses paint her neck,
her hand running through his hair- pulling.
Rhythmic hips set in motion-
sweat gently beading on the back of his neck.
Sweet nothings whispered in her ear,
she grasps at his back to pull him closer.
Heartbeats sync and breathing
becomes shallow and quick- craving the
soft moans lacing their exhales.
Cold November air leaks through the opened window,
but neither of them are cold.

I put makeup on my little sister.
I laugh as she squints her eyes too much and
mascara goes everywhere. Thin black streaks run along
her eyelid and below it; she goes to rub and
I have to hold her hands from creating a bigger mess.

The sky turns black and we run inside for cover.
She starts to worry as the rain erupts from the clouds
and cringes when she hears the thunder.
I tell her there's nothing to worry about,
and took her hand to lead her out on the porch.
Lightning cracked down so close,
and I scared her even more.

I laid her down in bed; past bedtime.
She was tired and I
didn't think she'd remember but
she asked me to sing her the song I made up
when she was just a baby.
I swept the hair across her forehead as I began the tune.
She grabbed my hand and drifted off to sleep.

She doesn't need me like she used to,
but I'll always be there, just in case.

My plant is dying.
Her long chlorophyll-filled leaves
drooping, sagging, lacking.

The sun barely shines on her anymore
as the shadows claim her
in the corner of my windowsill.
The only window in my tiny room
and it receives the least amount of light
due to the angles of the sun—
an inhibitor of her vegetative maturation.
As it is there’s hardly any daylight
left to give.

Winter is drawing near, and I should
learn to close my window
so the cold can't creep in—
but I open it anyway,
afraid to let go of any residual summer
that might still litter the increasingly frigid air.
Where did the time go?

The cold doesn't agree with her,
despite being a succulent—supposedly hard to ****—
so I trim the broken, withered limbs,
break them off so the plant can breathe again.
The now bare stem looks lonely.
So I water the dry dirt in hopes that
she’ll grow once more.

every word dripped from your mouth and
like snowflakes falling from the sky in December
I stuck out my tongue to catch every bit.
your hands painted red up and down my back--
a slow fire erupting in my chest.
in all the chaos you soothe me,
as I shed my skin and become more myself.
your pain fades from your eyes,
like water returning to sea
and you see me.
i push aside your uncertainty
and embellish your dark and ravenous fantasies.
i feed your mind
and you hush my erratic heart.

stars race across the night sky.
people watch in awe,
admire from afar,
and write songs about it.
but then it crashes and
burns out.
like you and me.

a child at a fair begs for ice-cream.
the reluctant parent gives in,
hands the cashier a few dollars and
the child smiles as he
licks the smooth vanilla from its cone.
licks are too slow and the
ice-cream melts and falls to the ground-
splat
like you and me.

music turned up louder,
playing through headphones.
you jog,
you dance in the kitchen,
and they become essential
to hear all your favorites songs.
you wake up and place them in your ears
only the next day and find
the left ear is static and the right is silent.
broken wires. bad connection.
like you and me.

a brown belt
strong and secure,
takes the weight of oversized guts and
cinching small waits with large behinds.
dependable, you wear it everyday.
a statement of who you are.
too much pull,
leads to broken belt holes;
the metal prong pulling through,
destroying material.
like you and me.

long blonde hair.
curled and styled to perfection,
blown in the wind and still gorgeous.
cancerous cells invade
and all the effort to fix it
makes the hair fall to the floor
in unorganized heaps.
leaving your skull
even when you beg it not to.
like you and me.

everything is like
you and me.