writing you letters with my soul instead of my pen
life is poetry
loss I’ll never be able to reconcile
here in this human form
always broken
and not sure if I’m mad about it
every single guitar string broken now
dancing anyway

I picked up your box of matches
their packaging promised deep green forests and toasted marshmallows on sticks
and even though I saw others tied to the stake
and even though I was burned badly in my child’s play
I felt that the long cardboard box with its deep red, sandpapered edge belonged to me

I was Harriet the Spy
to cope with your cruelty
thank god for that movie

Memories gaslight me anyway
whispering that I was wrong
and not good enough

Trauma happens
when things that cannot happen
Happen
I sat on a bed of grass surrounded by a brick fortress
they waited until I slept under the sun
they came while I dreamed of sugarplum fairies and ripped out the bricks from the bottom to reach me

I saw you on a bench in my new upscale neighborhood
muttering unintelligibly and I
walked on by, pretending I hadn’t seen you
wondering if you’d recognized me even with your poor vision the way you do sometimes because you know my shape and the hot pink of my favorite sweatshirt

We aren’t in the beach now
where love and wine and money flow freely and music is the official language
no, this is the real world where I’m a loose feather floating up and away on the breeze you’re an apple that’s fallen to the earth

If only I had sat for a moment
I meant for this to be in sickness and in health
I thought I was better and you were worse but my eyes shifted quickly away from your silhouette so now I know we’re both suffering from separate forms of the same illness
I’m sorry

early mourning
but for you it's a long, late night
all the dishes lay broken in the cabinet
and I
pretended the shards would not draw blood
I washed them anyway

the unchangeable gingerbread house
rotted eventually
but you scrambled me eggs when I met depression
gave me a chair when I could not stand