I won’t forget the way you shared your bed with her while I carried your child in my womb
I won’t forget the way you bulldozed my grace and love just because I would rebloom
I won’t forget the way you left me standing in the streets of Montreal—the reckless, frigid free-for-all
I won’t forget our heart-to-hearts, fall-aparts, fresh-starts
I won’t forget our once shared-dreams, fire-water color schemes; tip-toeing, balance-beams
I won’t forget your lack of self-acceptance; your fear, resistance, dependence
I won’t forget the way you disguise your loneliness; insecurity, disappointment—
your selfishness; inconsistency, vacant empathy
I won’t forget your impatience; porcelain ego, complacence
I won’t forget the way you’d kiss my feet; plead for forgiveness; make promises, repeat
I won’t forget an honest memory of you—instability, volatility
But I will only ever wish you depth, perspective, and humility

Gangling ghosts cause trouble inside
this meaty microwave--
I am on these streets and don't know
how I got here.
I'm carrying 2% milk, in my left hand,
and a carton of extra-large eggs in my right--
I drop the jug and it bursts. I joke about how
I still have 2%, but no one laughs because
no one has ever really been around to hear me.
So, I'm scrambling eggs and wishing I had that
milk because who doesn't like voluminous eggs.
I stop whisking and ask who is there.
Why am I afraid of you, Why am I afraid of you
the raw scrambled eggs on the floor, touched by
ceramic seashells.
And it's you.
You are the Lord, a naked lover, that absence
caused by my auto-pilot parents
Forever,
right here.

There was a girl
I used to swap paperbacks
and spit with, once
I fixed her wiper blades,
I remember the soft dead wings
on the windshield,  pretty
as you please

She was alone in her shoes
listening to something
that kept getting darker
and glowing like morning
on the oil spilled under her truck,
she was drifting through
the rosewater of her soft red hair

She only wanted to be rolling
off a swollen river, sliding
out of a clean slip, turning
over in a deep sleep, trailing
a shimmering thread, hiding
under a pile of wet leaves

Then there she was sailing
in her river of blood,  going
white and smelling like smoke
from a struck match behind
closed blinds on a ceramic floor,
a white blouse red as a sharp knife
collecting the light of mourning.